Technically, you can already do that today, as many youtube-videos have now autogenerated subtitles. Someone just need to build a tool utilizing them for this. Though, to be fair, the quality of those subtitles is sometimes a bit questionable. And they are not available in all languages. Especially if you want a different language then what is spoken in the video.

But yes, of course this is another case in which text can shine because of its weakness. Simplicity can be beneficial.

wait you can ctrl+f, just open the transcript on desktop. ideally should be added to their other clients but it works today

How do you open the transcript of a YT video?

next to the like buttons > click the ... > open tanscript

I wonder when google search results will start directing you to the middle of a YT video

They do this already. Some google search results will present a snippet of a Youtube video most relevant. Here's an example of a search query with such a snippet.

https://imgur.com/a/bxiBYUO

Here's an example: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=youtube%20replace%20fu...

I saw them do it a few years ago, it would link to the relevant clip in the youtube video that you could watch directly in the search results

There are coursera lectures that actually work like this with full transcripts where you can search the text and clicking on the text takes you to the correct part of the video.

Sometimes when I search for an exercise on google, it will link me to a segment of a video with the appropriate exercise. So I guess google is on this.

Not directly related to YouTube, but I found a site called playphrase.me that will let you search for text able show your clips on movies where that text is said. I love it and this comment reminded me.