Ask HN: How can YouTube be improved?

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6 comments

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My biggest grief with YouTube currently is, that I still need to have Flash enabled in order to watch ad-powered videos.
RSS Feeds so that you can subscribe to a channel as a Podcast in iTunes.
Can't stand the new update not letting me middle click videos to open in new tabs.

Also a way to block accounts would be great so I don't see "John1" "JohnsGames" "JohnsIphoneVideos" "JohnsTuesdayRants" covering the Browse page.

Not sure if this has any practical use, but it would be interesting to tie user comments to a specific time in the video so that you can see comments about specific parts of the video. For example, instead of watching a video, then scrolling down to read a user comment like "watch the blooper at 3:57", you could have a ticker below the video where "watch the booper" popped up at 3:57. I know the video author can add annotations, but users can't.
YouTube is nearly perfect for watching a video. That's what it's really good at. Not a lot of room for improvement on that.

The biggest unsolved problem is discovering good content. I would probably watch a lot more stuff on YouTube if I knew it existed. As is I usually learn about interesting content or producers from external sources. Making YouTube a better destination could turn it into something twice as amazing as it already is.

Two things I'm hoping for - a $3-5/mo ad-free subscription, and better playlist/favorites management.