On a recent Vergecast, Nilay and David were chatting about the very real idea that the current state of streaming services is just cable TV all over again. Of course, they are correct, but they also kept coming back to the idea that the only services that make a serious amount of money are those that convince people to make the content for free. The best example of this is YouTube, and I just don’t see it that way.

I understand some people do. My son used to watch a huge amount of gaming content and toy reviews when he was younger. People I follow online seem to really value YouTube Premium to remove ads from one of their most used services. Yet I balk at the £12.99⁠ per month cost because I don’t see any value outside of finding information on how to do things.

Don’t get me wrong, when a new phone comes out, or there’s an interesting camera I want to take a look at, YouTube is where I head to find video reviews. However, I think most of that is because web searching is so broken that it’s the only place I can reliably find what I am looking for. To me YouTube is transactional. I want to watch a few reviews of a new gadget, and that’s the place to find them all in one place. Outside of that, YouTube is a resource on the same level as Wikipedia.

I visit it often when something breaks in the house. The vacuum has yet another toy stuck in it, and I need to know how to take it apart. Or my heater is leaking, and I need to know if I can undo this screw or not. I can’t imagine YouTube being the place I go to watch something in the evening instead of Netflix — but clearly lots of people do.

Many years ago I tried, but I spent even more time trying to find something to watch than I would do in the Netflix never-ending carousel. Do people really sift through all the garbage to find something worth watching? What is there that’s worth my time? Certainly not Mr Beast or Fortnite streamers.