My theory is this: your favourite hobby store expands and adds one more aisle of fantastic products and five aisles of garbage. You’ll likely perceive quality as having gone way down. In a limited sense, sure: it might be in the way. But it didn’t replace the good stuff.
If my favorite hobby store kept on expanding and expanding and the ratio of great stuff to garbage kept going down, I would definitely perceive the overall quality as being well into some death spiral.
Quality niche creators are partially motivated (and sometimes supported) by viewers. The bigger the sea of garbage they are swimming against, the less inclined they will be to start or continue.
Trying to chase the broad appeal will lead, in my experience, to a downslide where content gets less and less useful and more pop-culture oriented, or it becomes outright fraud or manipulation.
The future is more content, not less, so finding mechanisms to cope with that is well worth the effort.
The problem is almost never that there's nobody in your aisle, it's about finding the right way to connect with them. There are numerous ways to do this. Even just leaving a comment on a video asking a question or responding to someone else's comment. That's about as low effort as you can get, but actually works.
My "subscriptions" tab is pretty good, though.
I click "don't show this channel" on those
"Romance" literature is honest in its own provincial way. No pretensions to much besides entertainment and consuming printing capacity.
I wish YouTube channels could be viable by following the Periodic Videos model - stick to a single domain but keep it fresh by improving on old content.
still though, so many cool and interesting things to learn online from interesting folks! :)
Nile Red
Nick Zentner
Practical Engineering
Real Engineering
Ivan Miranda
Joe Makes
Tom Stanton
Veritasium
Numberphile
Deep Sky Videos
Objectivity (Honestly all of Brady’s channels are great)
3Blue1Brown
CGP Grey
Undecided with Matt Ferrell
The B1M
Kurzgesagt
Scott Manley
PBS Space Time
Deep Look
Looking Glass Universe
Institute of Human Anatomy
Smarter Every Day
Be Smart (formerly Its OK to be smart)
I’ve also recently started watching Scam Nation, which is a walkthrough of various magic tricks, in a relaxed setting. It’s not as dense as some of the others, but very good.
I always think I will watch just 10-15 and end up watching the whole thing and then wonder why learning about a crappy refrigerator was so interesting.
And I already have a subscription, right here!
Ze Frank
Asianometry
Premodernist
Integza
Not David
iforce2d
Chronova Engineering
Posy
SuperfastMatt
Michael Rechtin
AlphaPhoenix
Hyperspace Pirate
Nicholas Rehm
James Biggar
Casual Navigation
Kraut
Spanning Tree
Geo History
EgyptologyLessons
Carl Bugeja
electrosync
Historia Civilis
Jeremy Fielding
there oughta be
Andreas Spiess
Same with casual navigation! Have I ever worked on or piloted a boat? No. But will I watch little 10min explainer videos about bilge pumps and anchor chains? Definitely.
Simone Giertz - engineering
EEVBlog - engineering
ElectroBoom - engineering
Technology Connections - stories about technology
Cathode Ray Dude - stories about technology, watch if you like technology connections!!
Socratica - math, science, programming explainers
VWestLife - retro consumer tech
TechMoan - retro consumer tech
AvE - Canadian in a workshop, a special kind of content
RobWords - language (Tom’s Language File fans check him out!)
Art of the Problem - math/programming but so varied, really worth a watch
Patrick Kelly - medical history, how did we discover a drug, stories about research
Epic Gardening - gardening! Big focus on fruit and veg.
Paige Saunders - Transit, Montreal, whatever he’s interested in!
RMTransit - Transit policy and operation
* Not Just Bikes
* City Beautiful
* Alan Fisher
* donoteat01 (not really uploading anymore since he has a podcast that takes all his time)
* Eco Gecko (also doesn't really upload anymore)
* Adam Something
And also others...
* Folding Ideas (popular topics video essays)
* hbomberguy (popular topics video essays)
* Epoch Philosophy (drier more academic video essays)
* BobbyBroccoli (intersection of science and politics, very well animated)
* Jacob Geller (media analysis)
* Explosions&Fire (aussie backyard chemistry, like NileRed, more of a vlog style)
* Mustard (engineering, similar format to Real Engineering)
* Oh The Urbanity!
* CityNerd
* Yet Another Urbanist
* RMTransit
* Miles in Transit
* The War on Cars (audio)
* The Urbanist Agenda (audio)
- Two minute papers (quick reviews/demos of new science papers in rendering and ai)
- Extra history (historic events / stories detailed and animated)
- Jeffiot (just recently gained popularity, hbomberguy-style)
Dunkey doesn't post hour long video essays, but I find that apart from the occasional filler and joke content, his focus is on fun and it is completely infused with an empathetic passion for gaming.
Mandalore does the occasional deep dives into the weird and obscure but he's thorough and doesn't take it too seriously. Again, seems like a guy who is passionate about games but prefers to go off the beaten path in terms of game coverage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X3EE_jNDRg&ab_channel=Alexi...
AustinMcConnell (random shit)
Two Minute Papers (ML paper review)
Plainly Difficult (industrial accidents/disasters)
Perun (military science)
EEVBlog (electronics engineering)
Summoning Salt (speedruns)
High Performance Academy (cars/tuning)
Ordinary Things (random shit)
Grind Hard Plumbing Co (cars/fabrication)
Engineering Explained (cars/explanation)
Half as Interesting (random shit)
Wendover Productions (random shit, but high quality)
Economics Explained (self explanatory)
Mini Air Craft Investigations (self explanatory)
Renegade Cut (leftist content)
LegalEagle (law)
Townsends (historical foods)
Casual Navigation (maritime/shipping)
How To Drink (mixed drinks)
Huygens Optics (optics/fabrication)
EmpLemon (weird video essays)
minutephysics (physics, and general science communications)
All of these I'd recommend for a general audience/nerdy person. Some of them are informative, some of them are funny. I've got much more that I'm personally interested in, but generally won't be interesting for the average person.
Also, Adam Ragusea has some good content on food science, among his regular cooking videos.
AlphaPhoenix - science
Jay Foreman - UK centric cartography skits, very funny
Atomic Frontier - various, Tom Scott style
Climate Town - US centric climate related skits, very informative, also very funny
Dr. Becky - astronomy
Into Europe - light, EU related informative skits
Johnny Harris - journalist turned YouTuber, opinionated but tries to keep a politically neutral stance
Adrian's Digital Basement (retrotech repair)
RMC The Cave (retro curation and stories)
Cntl Alt Rees (retro eclectic)
Jan Beta (repair)
LGR (eclectic)
Mr. Carlson's lab (repair of generally older RF, but some newer)
CuriousMarc (repair, testing, stories. Did a complete repair of the Apollo Guidance Computer)
Laura Kampf - german maker and problem solver, currently renovating a 120 year old house
Jimmy Diresta - maker and designer, also renovating an old house in upstate New York
Adam Savage - from MythBusters, interesting builds, and interesting discussion of shop and building techniques
Rambling Wild Rosie - former long-distance hiker and interior designer, renovating an old house in the forest Sweden, figuring things out as she goes - very beautiful and peaceful videos
Also loads of great wood working channels: Paul Sellers, Woodworking for Mere Mortals, Izzy Swan, Samurai Carpenter, and on and on!
Mattias Wandel for the woodworking channels list as well!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QeXOb9rxRY
Laura Kampf is wonderful, very inventive and knowledgeable builder, and great attitude.
FarmCraft101 (fixing and learning)
ProjectsInFlight (IC manufacturing at home stuff)
Lafayette Systems (rockets)
Air Command Rockets (air rockets)
Tod's Workshop (medieval weapons, history and testing)
Les' Lab (lasers!)
Erin's Audio Corner (speaker reviews)
Lubrication Explained (100% lubrication)
Process with Pat (process engineering)
Clough42 (fabrication etc)
Breaking Taps (machining and materials)
Stapleton42 (NASCAR history and more)
Projects With Everyday Dave (mostly solar power stuff)
Brandon Acker (classical guitar and more)
Building Integrity (building engineering and construction)
Nebula Photos (astrophoto)
Teaching Tech (3d printing)
Machine Thinking (machining history)
Stumpy Nubs (woodworking)
Andy Cooks (cooking)
Yesterdays Machinery (vintage machines and restoration)
BPS.space (rockets)
Jim's Automotive Machine Shop, Inc. (automotive machine shop stuff)
Ballistic High-Speed (Slowmoguys but weapons only)
my mechanics
Hand Tool Rescue
Cutting Edge Engineering
Inheritance Machining
Also: I Do Cars
- Adam Ragusea
- fern
[1] I have the desire to list him here 10 times in a row – definitely my current favorite!
worse, sometimes it isn't actually competence. yesterday i watched a video where a guy made opaque soda-lime glass and convinced himself it was a better refractory than his insulating firebricks because he was, among other things, confused about thermodynamics, confused about different material properties, confused about the composition of waterglass, confused about the composition of garden lime, and confused about the temperature of his oxyhydrogen torch (and, I suspect, in significant danger of blowing his foundry to kingdom come)
watching porn or sex tips videos won't make you a great lover. neither will reading alt.sex.wizards
fifty tom scotts is ten hours a week of, basically, watching porn. i spend more time than that on watching the youtubers listed above and others; what if i spent that time on deliberate practice instead? ten hours a week of etudes might not get you into juillard, but pretty soon you're better than the average garage band member
where do you get your etudes or katas, and how do you judge your success on them? textbooks are pretty okay for that, and it's possible to make youtube videos with exercises in them, but those aren't the videos that become youtube hits. and i think it runs counter to the nature of the medium: not just memetic fitness, but also the effort gradient for both creators and consumers
Well yeah. What if I spent all the time I spent on various types of consumption on deliberate practice. I'd be some kind of wizard by now.
There's nothing specially bad about these kinds of video in that respect.
Textbooks tend to be filled with crap themselves. I have a feeling you're judging the contents of 'educational' textbooks rather than the corpus of all textbooks.
Next, you are not an island. You need both things, insight from other people that are learned in said thing your attempting and practice. If you practice without the insight you're going to waste most of your life accomplishing something you could have learned from someone else in a few minutes.
There is nothing wrong with entertainment for entertainment’s sake.
the problem i have with educational youtube is
that it's competence porn. it's quite satisfying
It's a balance we all need to find, for sure -- competence porn vs. actual practice.I think it's only a problem when you fool yourself and/or hurt yourself.
Late in 2023 I started watching some streaming coders (a thing I did not know existed) and I've found it beneficial. Definitely exposed to some things I wouldn't have been otherwise.
Also - I don't need to master something. I like the messing about. Occasionally you'll later stumble across a problem you'd accidentally learnt the answer to - and that's gratifying, but it was never the point.
Did I waste time watching WoW YouTube videos? Yes. Did I save much more time by tricking my brain into thinking I was playing the game when I actually wasn't? Yes!
That Porsche 928 or Lamborghini Countach or the ultimate teenage dream Vector W8? Fun to look at the videos but realistically it would not be fun to own and maintain one.
And they are better, way better
I do worry that too many garbage aisles might mean people choose the garbage and never make it beyond, pushing non-garbage into a greater and greater minority.
This is actually something which is borne out by research, though in a slightly different context. Niro Sivanathan at the LBS has studied how arguments are presented, and essentially, recipients of arguments engage in an averaging function instead of an additive function, when evaluating strength -- adding one weaker point to a pair of very strong points actually detracts from the perceived strength of an argument.
It would not be at all surprising if we did the same sort of thing in different contexts, such as the example you gave here.