But what if I want to search knitting to find out how to knit, not to revel in quirk culture?
The "authentic" people are on Youtube and Reddit and Medium and publishing on Twitter and closed Facebook groups. And yet, some of those people sometimes want to make a living on their passion. I would be willing to bet most people on the web in the 90s would have as well, if they could have.
There is more hobby and enthusiast content on the web now than there ever has been, with more depth, greater quality and dimensionality than the 90's web could ever have hoped to offer, as well as far more opportunities for interaction between people. I think that's a fair trade for nostalgia and "quirk."
(Edited for less snark and more clarity since it seems this comment is getting sniped.)
It's a result of things getting worse. In an effort to stop abuse and increase drive to sponsored creators, YouTube committed a cardinal sin with respect to their discovery algorithm. They made things worse.
Discovery on YouTube is now comically difficult, getting out of your filter bubble means making bizarre searches and filter edge cases, otherwise you see the same 15 videos weekly.
They've failed to filter the hate content they intended to eliminate, they've failed to improve their curated content volume, and discovery remains bound and gagged in the back of Ad monetization's sedan.
If you were here in 2010 it's worse now. Privacy / safety / predictability, I guess, but the magic is all gone.
YouTube could use an [adult swim] concept. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. YouTube.
The "authentic" people are on Youtube and Reddit and Medium and publishing on Twitter and closed Facebook groups. And yet, some of those people sometimes want to make a living on their passion. I would be willing to bet most people on the web in the 90s would have as well, if they could have.
There is more hobby and enthusiast content on the web now than there ever has been, with more depth, greater quality and dimensionality than the 90's web could ever have hoped to offer, as well as far more opportunities for interaction between people. I think that's a fair trade for nostalgia and "quirk."
(Edited for less snark and more clarity since it seems this comment is getting sniped.)