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Ask HN: Lesser known educational/entertainment video site worth subscribing to?

3 points by akudha ↗ HN
I am done with Netflix, Hulu etc. Their quality is not good, it is mostly mindless entertainment anyway. In Netflix's case, their documentaries are shitty too.

Are there any video services worth subscribing to? Both educational and entertainment? I did some googling, found these so far - https://www.wondrium.com/, https://curiositystream.com/. They seem good, though I am yet to try.

Any more? Any diamond in the rough? I am aware of some YouTube channels, but I prefer sites like the two above. Especially indie, smaller teams that I can support, however tiny amount my money is.

8 comments

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LewisVerstappen
The Great Courses, Nat Geo, Discovery

College lectures like MIT Opencoursrware are also great.

themodelplumber
If your local library offers Hoopla, Hoopla has a "Great Courses Video BingePass": https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/14738022

If you like indie stuff, you should also dig into archive.org. A lot of really good educational content ends up there.

https://archive.org/details/zor_physics_teen_waves_OL_interf...

https://archive.org/details/peduca-P-SPAN_556_-_The_Science_...

https://archive.org/details/abou-farman-2

https://archive.org/details/podcast_migration-darwin-college...

Vintage educational films: https://archive.org/details/educationalfilms?sort=-publicdat...

Use the bang !iarchive to search directly with duck.com.

sqwrell
Discovery+ is great and cheap too
rmk
Discovery+ has been a Godsend. It's much more entertaining and interesting than many other venues such as Hulu and Apple TV.

I also recommend Amazon Prime. You get access to many great titles, plus the option to buy individual titles that are often pretty moderately priced.

f0e4c2f7
I haven't tried it yet but masterclass seems along these lines.
pinerd3
Worth mentioning Nebula [0], which is $10/month to support a large roster of educational (or education-adjacent) creators. The site is "creator-built and creator-owned", according to their homepage, and a number of YouTubers I like and respect have promoted them. No ads, and there's some Nebula-exclusive content which might be interesting as well.

[0]: https://nebula.app/

pinerd3
Oh, also, two other things: First, CuriosityStream has a bundle deal with Nebula where you can get both at once: [1]. You have to find an appropriate promo link from one of the participating YouTubers but that shouldn't be too hard.

Second, I know you mentioned wanting to find dedicated services, but if you're spending a decent amount of time on YouTube and you can afford it, I find Youtube Premium well worth it. Not having ads makes such a huge difference to the experience, and it also pays creators better!

[1]: https://help.curiositystream.com/hc/en-us/articles/360034158...

tomcam
I learn an enormous amount from YouTube and am very happy to pay so I avoid commercials.