I'm not disagreeing with you totally. Just want to point out that learning from a master, has a lot of benefits that you are overlooking. It's not necessarily a

I'm not disagreeing with you totally. Just want to point out that learning from a master, has a lot of benefits that you are overlooking. It's not necessarily about the absolute number of people that learn some skill at some novice level. The Renaissance, especially painting, was about having elite level of skill. That kind of skill needs to be taught intensively from early age, and get feedback when you are doing things wrong. Often with self directed learning the problem is "you don't know what you don't know". And you get stuck too often. For example, if you want to be an elite soccer player, ideally you will start at a very young age, and you will need a coach to give feedback and other players to play again at increasing competitiveness you can practice against. You can't get to elite level from watching youtube alone. In fact, the role of the coach in some ways is to filter out the people that are not making progress due to even things as unfair as natural physical ability. Selecting for those players and letting them pass on through the club system is how we arrive at someone as skilled as Ronaldo.