[Porsche-O-Phile]

I don't watch many YouTube videos anyway. Why is it that people feel like a video is necessary to communicate something that it takes half the time and one tenth the bandwidth to do so with a couple of pictures and some text?

Sometimes it's beneficial - I recently watched one showing how to adjust lawn tractor engine valves but even that could have been condensed from a 5 minute video to about 10 still images and a paragraph. That would've showed me the part I actually needed. By the time you eliminate all the needless "selfie" shots and self-promotional yammering how much of the average video is actually worthwhile content? Maybe half at best?

Ads are just one more reason I tend to skip video links and instead find simple ways to describe something or communicate information. They don't lend themselves to searchability well either. You can waste a lot of time filtering through video clips looking for something before you find one that actually shows what you need. They're just not very index-able. Pictures and written words have been used successfully in this regard for thousands of years. Videos occasionally have their use / benefit but seem to be overused these days. 'Cept for porn. Then they're fine.

I can't think of the last time I bothered to watch anything on broadcast television - it's all on-demand now (Netflix or Apple TV). I get what I want for far less than basic cable would cost and no commercial BS. It baffles me that some people still cling to the conventional model and get ripped off monthly to get content they don't want loaded with advertising crapola. Why?