I’ve read that half of all brain ….stuff (lol sorry — I forget the stat) is for visual processing. Correspondingly, visual content is pretty important to humans, and video is essentially the peak of that metaphoric mountain.
While one particular monopolist owns huge swaths of video content online, that’s not the only game in town. But, ya see, this is where it gets more complicated. In order to find videos you want to watch, you gotta have preferences, the more specific the better.
Back to video, the reality is that there is more video content online than you could ever watch. Web companies monetize your distracted attention by giving you ever-refreshing visual content so that your inclination is to scan for surface novelty, never engaging with the content beyond superficial glances. This is no way to live!
To actually get anything out of your time/attention investment, you must intentionally stop the endless distractions. Nobody is gonna do it for you. The companies serving you endless content make money by relentlessly distracting users. You might believe the product is “free,” but your ability to discern is being eroded as part of their business model. In order to get anything you want out of life, you must establish your personalized preferences. Without those, you’re simply consuming that which is put in front of you — and that’s no way to live.