This past week, I discovered and watched pretty much all of Not Just Bikes's videos. For me, it has been like waking up out of the Matrix to see that all of my surroundings are artificial and bad. I'm sharing on HN because I think this will resonate with the upbringing of other North Americans. I also feel that the current push to get everyone out of their gas cars and into electric cars is still ignoring an extraordinary hole in American infrastructure -- the possibility of not driving a car in the first place.

In the US it's long seemed obvious that cars have way too much privilege. (Just tonight I was honked at by a driver who wanted to use the intersection I was crossing.)

Yet, while we've had ideas floated for decades (e.g. limiting auto-traffic on downtown streets, as in Tokyo), it seems that not-driving keeps getting pushed away by something else. Malls disappearing? Amazon appears. (Humor: a person I knoe has been able to rebuild their only car because all the parts are being delivered - from everywhere in the country.)

Covid appears and mass-transit takes a big hit ... and Zoom appears to keep people home from work and school.

Someplace in the US has to be the first to try the Amsterdam way. But, given our habits built by 80 years of politics and conditioning (the Freeways were built under the direction of the former CEO of GM !) ... who'll be able to be the first?

I’m a massive fan as well. Found it about 4 months ago and it has changed my level of civic engagement in my small town. I am actively involved in the future of my town’s cycling infrastructure and it is in a large part due to these videos.

There are lots of packed in little towns and big cities if you want to walk everywhere. I like it much better as it is more spread out where I am with trees and privacy.

What’s with people doing videos instead of writing? I assume ad revenue?

Most videos that are 15 min long have content that could be summarized in a 1-2 min read.

Especially most casual linux/programming tech videos are horrible: I do not even understand how someone watches those. You need to know how to sort files for latest entries (ls -lat) and instead of 7 chats you get a 15 minute video. How does that make sense? Not only that, you have to type the commands yourself instead of copy/paste. Very weird with larger programming explanations IMHO. Reading is vastly more efficient for me: I also absorb it better that way.

But yes, people are lazy readers it seems, so these things work for most I guess. And everything is optimized for revenue which makes stuff even more unwatchable.

I’d be very surprised if an Indie creator would create a 1-2 minute read about bikes that 500k people would find worthwhile to read.

Video is offen a compelling medium— especially if you can’t write for a major publication