I've been collecting books, documentaries and music for many years.
The amount of rare shyt that was just fully and freely available if you knew what to look for was crazy 2008ish.. I remember someone posted that unreleased hour long interview Tupac(when he let his hair/fro grow out, did in whilst in prison in 1995.. I remember the very first time that was posted my jaw was on the ground
I remember discovering so many great documentaries on there that I still have to this day (Banished, The 1919 Tulsa Race Riots, old skool non clout chase conspiracy theorists etc)
But here's what I miss the MOST, you'd click on a Parliament Funkadelic song and the top 3-5 top rated comments were dropping even more game on you to expand your musical knowledge, telling which albums to look for, which era was more funk, which was more fusion, backstories to some of your favorite albums etc etc you'd end up discovering so many things
People on this C-Span Book TV videos comments section would be having cordial debates dropping all kinds of references you'd discover people like Marshall McLuhan's theories on media, or Noam Chomsky
I remember learning about ALL the inhouse deathrow records producers(Soopafly, DJ Quik's sound engineering etc)
I miss that era tremendously
I also think that most people on YouTube that time were born in the late 70s, 80s and early 90s at the latest
That generation is completely different and appreciated things differently
Now you need a subscription service or iptv to get that sort of content.
Those were the days
