Interesting! Almost all my video watching is on a roku box attached to my TV. I may watch a tiny bit more Youtube than Netflix on my PC or phone, just because people send me links that way, but if the videos they link me are more than a minute or two, usually I'm saving them to "watch later" and catching them on the TV box.

I'd have assumed most people's proportions were similar and that therefore the proportions for the two services were similar; that is to say, for people who use both kinds of devices to watch video, I wouldn't have expected a big difference based on the specific service.

Do you have a source that suggests that people who use both kinds of devices watch a larger proportion of Netflix on the TV but a larger proportion of Youtube on PC?

I normally look for text alternatives, to be honest. It's not necessarily a bias against YouTube, but more video-based content in general. If I can't find an alternative I'll skim it with subtitles on. I certainly wouldn't have it open for one and half hours in a 3 hour period though!

I know many people do watch YouTube videos but indeed, when a link leads to a YouTube video I don't follow it (and nobody ever just sends me links to YouTube).

I do turn to YouTube if I need some kind of visual guide, like for auto repair sometimes, but it's rare.

Most links to YouTube videos I find are excruciatingly slow explanations of something that could be done in two paragraphs and one screenshot, or some kind of meme that I don't find funny.

If a friend sends me a link to youtube, i might click on it to see what the video is, and then close it without watching it. This doesn't happen very often though. If someone gives me a timestamped link and tells me to watch 30s at that spot i'll humor them, but that's about my limit.

That perfectly describes my behaviour. I don't care for video content. (I similarly don't open tiktok or instagram reel links.)

For a few things I've found where youtube has some specific content I'm interested in, I'll use yt-dlp to download and archive it to watch outside of youtube.com.

I download it with yt-dlp like any sane person should.

The typical web user is not on a laptop unplugged from the wall, which is the scenario where battery life matters.

True, i give you that.

But saying YouTube must be included is like saying that most people watch YouTube, which is certainly not true at all.

"YouTube", like "Twitter", has never been one thing, one culture. There's a zillion long tail creators making all kinds of unmonetized stuff because they want to.