You may have noticed (or not) that I’ve been doing a bit more publicly on YouTube recently. I’m familiar with the video-making process. I’ve made over a thousand of them for all the Field Guides combined, and I’m approaching 400 videos in the MacSparky Labs.

What I hadn’t done much of, however, is public videos. So over the last several months, I’ve been making more of an effort there. I’ve got some editing help to give my videos a bit more of the public YouTube look, and I’ve been linking some of them in my newsletter as of late. I felt like a few clicks from the newsletter would hopefully give the videos a little steam in the YouTube algorithm.

My goal here isn’t to become the next Marques Brownlee, but instead just to get some of the stuff I’m doing out to a bigger audience. I hope it helps a few people out and, at the same time, brings a few more folks into my podcasts, MacSparky Labs, and the Field Guides.

Last weekend I had intended to share a video in the Saturday newsletter about why I’m choosing the iPhone Duo. I’d already shot the video, but the edit wasn’t quite done when the newsletter shipped. It was finished later that day, so I scheduled it for Sunday morning without expecting many people to see it since it didn’t go in the newsletter.

I didn’t think much about it until I logged into YouTube Monday afternoon to watch some of my favorite makers during some downtime. I wasn’t thinking at all of that iPhone Duo video when it popped up in my recommendations. That was odd, I thought, so I looked closer, and it said 112K views.

What?

It turns out the video I released on a Sunday with no fanfare blew up. The last time I checked, it passed 600,000 views, which is about forty times the size of my YouTube subscriber list.

I’ve been making things on the internet for almost twenty years, and I still can’t predict this. But I spent the week paying attention and reading the comments, and there’s something in there worth passing along.

The video contains no news. Everything in it was already public. There’s no benchmark, no teardown, no camera comparison. Indeed, I said explicitly at the beginning that this was not a review but a “buying decision” video. I explained what I’m buying and why, and what I’m giving up to get it. There were very few specs discussed.

The comments made the case better than I can. Nearly 900 of them, and almost none were about millimeters or megapixels. They were people explaining their own reasoning back to me. One reader wrote that he’s had Pro Max models for six years, takes a lot of photos, and has never felt the Pro camera made him a better photographer. He wasn’t reacting to my information. He was using my argument as something to push against.

Two things I’m taking from this.

If you make things, your audience probably wants your judgment more than your research. Research is easy. (Even easier in the age of AI.) Judgment and taste is the part only you have.

And if you’re just trying to buy a phone: the reason the argument landed isn’t that the Duo is better. It’s that I named the tradeoff out loud. I’m giving up the best camera Apple makes in exchange for a device I’ll use differently. Once the tradeoff is on the table, you can disagree with me productively. Most gear advice never gets that far. It lists everything a product does well and leaves you exactly where you started.

It’s all been a fun week for me, but I’m not taking any of it particularly seriously. I’m not tracking views or planning how to blow up next time. I made a video that the YouTube algorithm blessed for reasons I’ll never know, and it resonated with people. I could make another 100 videos, and I wouldn’t be surprised if none of them came close to those numbers. It’s iPhone season, the Duo is the most argued-about Apple product in years, and I happened to have an interesting opinion. I can’t reproduce that on purpose, and I’m suspicious of anyone who says they can.

The part I can reproduce is the part about judgment and taste. Now, more than ever, say the thing. Pick a side. Show the tradeoff.

I’m still buying the Duo. 🙂