I don't use Youtube for detailed technical documentation, but I watch a lot of conference talks and lectures on technical topics. I also like to watch other peo

I don't use Youtube for detailed technical documentation, but I watch a lot of conference talks and lectures on technical topics. I also like to watch other people programming to pick up their small tricks and the details of their setup. This is invaluable information that would otherwise be inaccessible except by acquiring it by chance at the workplace, a meetup, or a conference. Youtube's the first place I go to learn about any topic I'm a beginner on, especially topics which require manual skills, like home repair, automobiles, playing an instrument. It is a repository of the informal knowledge of mankind that is unprecendented in scale, breadth, and probably depth. It may be more revolutionary than book-learning in how it has disseminated knowledge to the world, and large parts of it would have incalculable value in being preserved. I only wish the Internet Archive had the sort of resources necessary to back up Youtube, but that seems unlikely to happen given the huge amount of storage necessary.