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Opal Cutting on YOUTUBE

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55fossil:
    Just wondering if others are using You Tube to learn about Lapidary things, such as opal cutting.  I have been using it lately to see all the things I wish I had known about cutting Good Opal. Yes, there are tons of posts that are from people that may want to try something different! But there are some awesome posts showing start to finish opal cutting of really high quality as well as average quality Opal Gemstones. I now know for certain I wasted a lot of good Australian opal.
   I have been less impressed with the posts I have watched about cutting and polishing agates and jaspers. Seems there are a lot of nice rock hounds with time on their hand. But even the average posts by bored cutters contain some good information. But some are well, what they are. Many of us here, at least me, do not know which stones are which as I just proved with my post about is it Aventurine or Amazonite. I do not know what so many stones are and have to go by what others tell me.   
   Any thoughts about You Tube posts???

R.U. Sirius:
One way to look at it is by understanding that nowadays, we can recognize several extreme categories of content creators, and then understand that each actual creator is likely some mix of these.

(1) People who just like to show and share what they do (or are attempting to do), mostly getting their satisfactions  out of recognition and positive feedback from the audience. Very often this is unreliable content by inexperienced but overly confident makers. Every once in a while, amazing and skilled artists just go ahead and share their insights and techniques. Lyle Sopel, for example.

(2) Those who are creating content that promotes what they may be selling - equipment, rough materials, magazine subscriptions, or classes. In my experience, some of the most educational, curated content currently available falls into this category (Highland Park videos, Gem-A lecture series, William Holland School, L'ÉCOLE School of Jewelry Arts).

(3) People (and, it's already happening, content-creating algorithms) who create content simply to attract viewers so they monetize the engagement through the YouTube advertising system. This is the worst - photoshoped thumbnails designed to catch and mislead attention, paying robot farms to boost view counts, "you won't believe what I found inside this rock!!!" etc. Low-effort content at best.

(4) Disingenuous rockhounds who create "reviews" and other such content promoting other businesses (equipment vendors, fee-dig mining sites) in exchange for kickback payments or freebies, without making these backroom deals clear to the unsuspecting audience.

vitzitziltecpatl:
All the above is correct, but for cutting really good opal check out these two guys on YouTube.

black opal direct

pulitzer opal

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