Tubed

I've long thought YouTube was destined for longevity in the world of online media. Now twenty years old and with a wealth, nay riches beyond conception, of content, it now outranks the media giants Netflix, Disney and Amazon Prime Video in the US [Financial Times, today]. Where it scores for me, though, is in offering intelligent content alongside the frivolous, from podcasting to music, archive footage, and live sports. And the great thing about its algorithms is that if you are interested in the more archane, dealing with very niche subjects like lost skills and crafts in Germany's midwest, such as this example, you can just search to - or let serendipity, even - point you at something you could never in a thousand years get via any other media, social or otherwise; then just start subscribing to the stuff you like, and your feed will be full of the kind of content you enjoy watching. There are enough sidebar tasters to get you venturing into other areas to pique a new interest, should you choose:

There's great scientific content on there by some of the world's best academics; there's mathematics, custom car building, engineering and woodworking: there's literature, art, cooking, rock climbing, chess, and a gazillion other topics. Yes, there's fluff in abundance, as well as the dreaded time-sapping machine-narrated clickbait, but you can stop those when it's obvious that it will never get going until the thing has passed the monetisation cutoff: using your built-in human resource of critical thinking will get you onto something more worthwhile with a click, tap or swipe or two. When YouTube first went online in 2005, I was of the [woefully incorrect] opinion that the thing would be a niche backwater, doomed ultimately to failure. I changed my mind as soon as I discovered the nature and scope of it after its content-density passed criticality a couple of years later, and when its utility as a resource became obvious. Now look at the scale of it...