I'm not a fan of the youtube link trend on HN, as cool as the latest robots are. I know they're encroaching on territory previously held by much heavier additive and subtractive machines.
And I am okay with YouTube when a video makes sense, but in this case they have basically crammed a short article into a video, making it more awkward to read: slides with texts and diagrams, with some background music, and only a video demonstration in the end.
I also caught myself thinking that most of the content would be more accesdible as an article - I needed to pause and rewind several times. Although the aticle would include some video fragments (the final demo and some others)
Are you saying you don't like video and would prefer text, or is it something specific to YouTube that you object to? For many topics, video is really helpful in understanding stuff.
It's a mix of both, I guess. I don't like youtube taking over for text based sources. It's less accessible, way less efficient, and feeds into the google surveillance machine.
This doesn't address your (valid) systemic concerns, but on efficiency the way I like to use links like this is by adding them to a queue for later, then, if I have an opportunity to play them while doing the dishes or commuting or just feeling like watching a television I play them back, usually at higher speed of playback than 1.0. If I'm just sitting on the couch actively watching I'll read ahead in the transcript and skip ahead if I feel like it.