Comment by al_borland

While there is a lot of low-effort content, there is also some pretty involved stuff.

The investigation into Honey’s shenanigans[0] was investigated and presented first on YouTube (to the best of my knowledge). The fraud in Minnesota was also broken by a YouTuber who just testified to Congress[1]. There are people doing original work on there, you just have to end up in an algorithm that surfaces it… or seek it out.

In other cases people are presenting stuff I wouldn’t otherwise know about, and getting access to see it at levels I wouldn’t otherwise be able to see, like Cleo Abram’s[0] latest video about LIGO[1]. Yes, it’s a mostly entertaining overview of what’s going on, not a white paper on the equipment, but this is probably more in depth than what a science program on TV in the 80s or 90s would have been… at least on par.

There are also full class lectures, which people can access without being enrolled in a school. While YouTube isn’t the original source, it is still shared in full, not summarized or changed for entertainment purposes.

[0] https://youtu.be/vc4yL3YTwWk (part 1 of 3)

[1] https://youtu.be/vmOqH9BzKIY

[2] https://youtu.be/kr3iXUcNt2g

[3] https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/page/learn-more