[ogurechny]

This is a great example of work “community” can do. We're in “Web 2.0” era, after all.

Dedicated fans can make a nice transcript, take screenshots when needed, and, usually with the blessing of the author, post it somewhere. It can also be turned into decent subtitles and attached to original video. Speech recognition can provide basic timestamps, then lots of merging and splitting in subtitle editor can happen, and correct text can overwrite the mess.

Rough estimate is 1 day of work for 1 hour of video. Commercial channels simply hire someone to do that before release. Author of the video in question has already provided the script himself.

When YouTube disappears, using the article, and keeping copies of videos in an on-demand archive (e. g. big torrent) would be easier than providing a streamable copies of all videos for everyone.

Comments on certain channels are important assembly points of knowledgeable people, and should be saved, too. Google might have a negative opinion on copying “its” data to other public web pages, but Goggle is not forever.