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Comment by teekert | Hacker News Reader

What a time to be alive, to find such ultra high quality and inspiring materials for free. When I was young I spend so much time with an illegal copy of Encarta (which sparked my career as a scientist) and already considered myself to be fortunate... What a time to be alive.

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I learned more about electrolysis in this short YouTube video than I did in years of science classes at school.

Today I learned Encarta was not free.

In a sense it was (set?) free. And that led to a lot of good things, imho.

It cost $100 in 1993, after they dropped the initial price. That is about $235 now.

What about like educational licenses? Esp late 90s

Thanks. I'm Irish, no idea what the price (in Punt, it would have been!) should have been at. A family friend hooked us up with software that should have cost money (mostly Office software, but some games and Encarta included) via the usual means.

I have fond memories of the, I think 1995, Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia. I think it was given away with new computers, like Encarta and Grolier's. I think I did buy the Compton's CD, but at a huge discount, since I bought it grey market (not bundled with a PC, but from a PC retailer).

Seriously. I was such an information hog too at that age (still am). I would read the entire encyclopedia, every science book I had over and over and explore the encarta cd a lot.

> inspiring materials for free

Minus ad watch time! The cost is directly proportional to how you value your time.

There exist adblockers and extensions like SponsorBlock to block in-video sponsor segments, tangents, intros, outros and other time wasters.

I gave you clear clues, but you still overlooked my comment. These blockers are a hit or miss on any given day; remember, it's a continuous fight between both sides.

I have watched literally zero ads on Youtube since I installed uBlock Origin and SponsorBlock many years ago. If it’s a continuous fight then it’s one that adblockers continuously win.

No, they've been working just fine for years, maybe you should actually have experience with them before making such false equivalences.

Also no need for the snark in your first sentence, if you're going to say something then say it, instead of giving people "clues" and trying to fault them for failing to read your mind for some reason.

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