I think we are at a point at a species where, if one can't read, then one really needs to learn to read. It is such a requirement for so many things. Or get a screen reader...

It's fine to make a video, but if your work is serious at all, it should also be in written text. It's much quicker to read than listen to someone talk. I'm sure there are exceptions where video format makes more sense, but, as a rule, it's incredibly stupid.

I can’t understand the arrogance of telling other people that they ‘should’ produce their content in a format of your preference.

When I use should like this, I mean that it's the only sensible thing. They can do what they want. I don't view their content anyway, so it's no skin off my teeth.

Videos articles are far more difficult to make than text articles.

If you make a video, just include the transcript.

There are certainly times when video is appropriate, but I feel like we can all relate to the times that it's not; when someone has a list of 6 things, and instead of just listing them, they make a snazzy video. The video is still text-based; maybe there's an image slideshow as well, but it's effectively the same information in the same format, just spread out over a 2 minute video.

But that's precisely the point. Just like HTML should be written with accessibility in mind, content ought to be provided with accessibility in mind. Obviously if you are going to a video-focussed site a la youtube you expect to watch videos. But what if I want to skim the news and happen to trust a particular organization? It would be ideal to have this information in a number of formate so I can consume their information in a manner best-suited for me. No one is saying "banish all video!", they are simply saying certain areas of information are better presented in text form for many people and it would be nice to easily consume info in that way.

You can always use a screen reader to automatically have it read the text to you, and it works well enough.

I can’t have an OCR system automatically translate a video into text.

Even if you can have it transcribed (which is possible today), videos contain far more information than what is spoken: gestures, emphasis / how words are spoken, body language, objects, diagrams, etc. While skilled speakers may try to mitigate that so that the presentation degrades somewhat gracefully to a transcription, it's by no means a one-to-one translation, and it doesn't always make sense.

While you make a good point about screen readers, there actually are tools that automatically translate a video into text. In fact, doesn't YouTube's "CC" button do that? The translation isn't great, but it's usually good enough and will probably get better over time.

For comparison, this is the output of YouTube’s CC button applied to a video, and the text extracted. Not exactly a readable article.

> extremely pleased to have our first and indeed only genuine superhero you you may have come across know and across the internet as Captain disillusion you've already seen some their fantastic work there you to tell is amazing if you haven't seen it I I personally do subscribe to it they're given there are over quarter of a million other subscribers I am statistically insignificant and you should update I think the number of views on the channel has now passed 15 million so if you could all adjust your booklet accordingly that would be appreciated captain disillusion will be talking to us about heroic feats of YouTube D bunker II so can you please I think we're set put your hands together welcome to stage Captain disillusion hello hi quick clarification I'm not Compton disillusion obviously my name is Alan and I'm an intern at disillusion industries the captain's…

Now here’s the output of a written article automatically turned into speech:

https://s3.kuschku.de/public/audio.mp3

Now tell me, which of them is more usable?

YouTube’s CC button is bad. Seriously, Google Translate is far better, and even that is impossible to understand. Especially when the discussion includes technical terms.

The only time YouTube’s CC button works even slightly okay is if the uploader manually transscribed everything.