One, Veritasium. Content like this didn't (perhaps even couldn't) exist before YouTube. The science TV shows and even many books don't go into as much user-friendly depth as this does. You'd have to go to college and pay to get content even remotely close (and still, based on prior experience, not as good).
Two, any one of many How To DIY channels. They show you how to do things you're unlikely to find elsewhere. Where else will you find someone willing to tell you how to change your oil and filter on a [random year & model] car for free? How to wire up a light switch to code? How to clean your sink drain? Certainly not the paid professionals.
There are also channels like the Sampson Boat Company that take a project that would've just ended up turning an old boat into scrap after a while into one of my favorite carpentry/woodworking things to watch, better even than old episodes of the Woodwright's shop or This Old House.
> for free?
It's not really for free. People making these videos are getting paid.
> go to college
One thing I do appreciate is universities streaming their classes, on Youtube or other means. Of course, it's not that I will become an astrophysicist by just watching videos.
The value of the digital equally does not imply a lack of value in the physical.
And, I will assert until I’m dead, the internet has done nothing but broaden my horizons - for the internet is full of quality information and entertainment, beyond what I could ever find in the physical world, if only because without a free or cheap publishing method the information and entertainment would not exist.
Some things are simply not possible with only a “physical economy,” because t physical economy is about things, not ideas.
That said, there is also a lot of junk YouTube content, which feels similar to browsing Reddit, Facebook, or eating donuts for that matter... It's a guilty pleasure to watch some videos. Even the "cute" ones, like cat videos, or "funny" fail compilations, or impressive parkour videos. These can be entertaining on the surface, but I find they do the opposite of inspire me. They're temporarily exciting to watch, but overall do not any value to my life and in the big picture, I find them to be more of a distraction than anything. Some people have a balanced media diet and can consume it moderately. For me, it's too easy to spend several hours in any given week watching completely useless videos - especially with the ever growing mechanisms to try to keep your eyes glued to the screen (auto-play features, suggested playlists, etc).
I compare it to a type of drug use. Some people handle it well, others don't. Like most things, YMMV.
Edit: I also feel like with YouTube's insane growth over the past decade, there are way too many people trying to game the system. It leads to some very good content, but also a lot more junk content that just manages to add better keywords for searches, or a more attractive title/thumbnail to catch your eye (I'm sure many people are familiar...).
I was more meaning about being distracted. A lot of times it feels like browsing sites with a lot of updates is something I do when there is not immediately anything else to do. But that's an individual issue. If I am going to rectify that problem, then I need to ask what I would be doing instead, and do that, instead of falling back to whatever happens to be in reach. Sometimes I apply a rule of only using YouTube for X hours if I know exactly what I want to watch ahead of time, instead of using the recommendations to watch something I didn't necessarily know or care about but looks like an enticing rabbit hole to fall into from the presentation.
I do enjoy using YouTube as a platform, I just need better viewing habits.
Second, the good old days of "before" we were enterprising enough to invent big data etc. is retroactively constituted, and not apparent until its demise. Before YouTube it was television and radio, magazines and books, and even writing itself. On the technology of writing, Plato said "They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks."
These constructions create the appearance of the industry's indestructibility -- certain consequences (the before, the help, or the livelihoods or subcultures you mention) are taken to axiomatic or self-evident, creating a logical construction that is bulletproof in its circular vacuousness. YouTube will die, just as websites before it have died, and technologies before it have died. What comes next might be better or worse.
That is to say, just enjoy your videos if they make you happy.