Some YouTube videos are great but.....

[rpcrowe]

YouTube is a great conglomeration of resources. You can learn how to do just about anything (probably not open heart surgery) from YouTube videos...

However there is a great variance in the quality of instruction provided in these videos. Some are quite polished and professional while others are done by yahoos whose only accreditation is that they own a video camera and know how to hit the record button...

As an example of the variance in quality, NIK Software and OnOne Perfect Photo Suite have a large series of instructional videos that are superb. OTOH, I was trying to watch an instructional YouTube video on editing using Windows Live Movie Maker. The presenter had never used Windows Live Movie Maker previously but, touted that he was going to teach the viewer how to use that program

I guess that the moral of this post is that if you need brain surgery, ensure the doctor has learned how to do the cutting from a good YouTube video, not from a guy who has never done the surgery before but, professes to be an expert

[Donald]

How very true, Richard. You have to be highly selective.

In relation to the NIK suite of tools, when Nik was an independent operation, the videos and 'on-demand' webinars in the training section of its website were just superb. When bought over by Google, the fear was that these would get lost in the morass of 'other stuff' out there on YouTube. And for a while that was the case. But I see, now, that they've collected the videos together again at https://www.youtube.com/user/NikSoftwareLessons. And good on them for dong so.

[IzzieK]

Haven't you heard, Richard?? The IRS wants your stool sample by April 15th... (tongue-in-cheek statement but this is comparable to what you are saying...)

[Shadowman]

Some can be informative, yet the presenter very annoying.

[kateveber]

That is all 'cause of the popularity of YouTube videos and people want it to be presented anyhow.

[Kris V]

Or look at an "instructional" video with just a mouse running through the screen, a click here and there, and the most annoying background music in the world....
Not ONE word of explanation.