I've noticed this too, it's becoming somewhat infamous that modern YouTube videos are all these 1+ hour long 'video essays' on topics which could easily be replaced with 2-3 page articles to be read in half the time.
While back in the day a long video essay was usually borne out of necessity and thus information-dense and high-quality—not unlike a documentary, actually—it feels like length itself is an objective for a lot of newer videos.
I suspect many subconsciously think "if my video is 2+ hours long, then clearly it's high-quality and well-researched", regardless of the actual density of information.
And don't even get me started on content creators that use AI-generated sludge because they don't have enough relevant visuals for the runtime of the video. Like dude, just make the video shorter.
While back in the day a long video essay was usually borne out of necessity and thus information-dense and high-quality—not unlike a documentary, actually—it feels like length itself is an objective for a lot of newer videos.
I suspect many subconsciously think "if my video is 2+ hours long, then clearly it's high-quality and well-researched", regardless of the actual density of information.
And don't even get me started on content creators that use AI-generated sludge because they don't have enough relevant visuals for the runtime of the video. Like dude, just make the video shorter.