>Read a book, touch grass, etc.
There's a ton of useful information that's only available in Youtube videos and not books such as DIY tutorials, repairs, etc.
Unfortunately, many helpful videos also include useless fluff. E.g. a "good" 10 minute video on how to disassemble a Samsung dryer to replace the heating element also has 2 extra minutes of "click my link to Nord VPN" and "please smash that Like button and subscribe". Therefore, tools using AI to remove the extra time-wasting fluff can help. There is no book in the public library or Amazon that will show the tricky steps to repair a Samsung dryer. It's Youtube videos uploaded by random people that has information like that.
My friend learned how to use her new Apple Watch by watching Youtube videos. Yes, there's official Apple documentation but it's hard to learn from a wall of text with static screen shots. In contrast, watching youtubers do live demonstrations with their fingers manipulating the screen accompanied by voiceover narration is easier to understand.
EDIT reply to: >When you've saved "years of watching" by using sponsorblock and 2x speed, that's not how you use YT. Sponsorblock saves 25% at most.
Your math is incomplete in your characterization of the gp you replied to because he also mentioned "DeArrow (de-clickbaits thumbnails and titles). That tool saves 100% of the watch time when the re-titled videos instantly informs him he can totally skip it.
When you've saved "years of watching" by using sponsorblock and 2x speed, that's not how you use YT. Sponsorblock saves 25% at most.
To be clear, I am not saying that youtube has no use, but the commenter I originally responded to is clearly in excess of whatever that reasonable level is.
How exactly does one "use YouTube," in your opinion then? You also forgot the effects of the other extensions than just SponsorBlock, even 2x speed (I watch at higher than that usually) saves 50% immediately. You presume I don't also do those things you listed, I now have more time to do them because of the time saved, not less.
You watch and enjoy the content that you like, find useful or otherwise enjoy instead of min-maxing your way to not supporting the platform or creators that are spending their time creating that content.
If the platform and creators are incentivized to waste my time, then why would I support that? I watch and enjoy the content even more knowing that I am not wasting my time.
This is where the snide touch grass comment above was awkwardly pointing. If you feel like you're wasting your time and can't be bothered to do so in a holistically responsible way (supporting the creators at the very least) then perhaps your time would be better spent doing something else.
i.e. you may be wasting your time already.
I probably shouldn't have wandered into a thread that's ostensibly about ripping off content creators to begin with. I'll take my moral high horse elsewhere lol.
Why would I care about responsibility when I waste my time, much less "holistic responsibility?" Sounds like your moral systems are different from others' in this thread.
I totally agree, you're absolutely right about that. have a good one.
They shared a list of plugins that might be useful to other people, so the comment has value. I recently found out about the "press to 2X speed" and I love it. Does that mean I should go touch grass because I use it in a non-stock way? Or are you the ultimate decider on the maximum limit of plugins or hacks?
It’s the seventh commandment, don’t you know?
7. Thou shalt not use more than two browser plugins.
I agree with you about there not being anything wrong with watching YT videos (no virtue signaling about "grass" here) but at the same time, couldn't you just watch the video on 1.5x - 2x? You can easily skip the VPN ad reads, I don't know, how valuable is your time, really, at the level of minutes? I know that there will be people on here that have autistic levels of min-max optimization of their entire lives like some kind of techno-vampires or something but if you're watching a couple dozen videos, plus or minus, a day is this really enough time to be worth a bunch of micro-optimization?