Rodney Mullen, the godfather of basically every trick that involves jumping up and flipping the board and landing on it, has a great TED Talk on epistemology in skateboarding [1]. The biggest block is often just to see proof that something can be done. He also draws apt comparisons with the open source community. Interestingly, he apparently invented a lot of his tricks in isolation on a farm; some genius thrives in the woodshed.
Thinking in McLuhanisms, these new mediums have undoubtedly extended epistemology in very revolutionary ways, but it's definitely amputated them as well. The dime-a-dozen landscape and portrait photos that are nigh indistinguishable, the wild west of the content treadmill economy, and the anxiety of influencers [2].
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GVO-MfIl1Q
[2] https://harpers.org/archive/2021/06/tiktok-house-collab-hous...
This is super important in most sports. It's really hard to know if you are just doing it wrong or it's just not possible. Only the super talented can break through that. Most others need some guidance.
But of course you should take actual lessons from instructors before using youtube as a resource.
I'm a completely self taught outdoor climber (with the exception of a lead belay course indoors) and have worked up to some pretty advanced stuff. Trad, big wall, self-rescue, etc.
Youtube was a big part of that. You can watch videos published by authoritative sources, cross reference them with books, etc. and get a very good understanding of a topic. Even when your life is on the line.
Then you can start branching out once you know the building blocks. Some rando on Youtube is showing you how to build some new-to-you self-equalizing anchor? Well they're just using the knots and concepts you already know from the authoritative sources. You can verify it's safe yourself, and then judge the usefulness.
But I've seen my fair share of people setting up american death triangle or threading ropes directly through the metal anchor. I've seen people using daisy chains as personal anchor device or taking hands off the grigri.
I fall on the side of holding people back is better - but who knows, maybe not
Do you think these people have spent even a second doing any actual research on Youtube or otherwise, though? I have a hard time believing there are any Youtube videos suggesting the use of the American Death Triangle or threading ropes through the fixed anchor chains. Not using a daisy chain as a personal anchor is basically a meme at this point in any climbing forums.
In that case, it seems like the real thing to suggest is that people not just go out there and wing it. It's not that Youtube has failed them in that case, it's that they didn't even use it.
Most people can't go rock climbing outside
It is a lot easier nowadays to go from completely new to decent or even "good" in a specific domain by following some simple visual instructions.
PingSkills: https://www.youtube.com/user/pingskills
Tom Lodziak: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqHc12tVGhzBtlMUq7MR7wA
PingSunday: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnSKFBegbrmsimjnC9p-G...
Coach Lin: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChW6mCKAPsYIEYnH5jnkCyw
And many more that them have very good and useful content.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-revol...
There's this guy on YouTube who races the car in both real life and iRacing, and he explains how he drives the car fast in both contexts.
His insights probably saved me a lot of work of figuring it out myself.
So I expect the next generations of athletes to have way better knowledge of the sport and just be way better.
Same in music. I had a drummer friend who had one tape of Neil Peart of Rush. He studied this in and out. Today you can find recordings of all the greats easily and see how they do it. This will take off years of the learning curve.