Everything has incentives. Money drives everything you come across on the internet, either directly or indirectly. The guru scammer is directly driven by money and followers. The average person on instagram is driven by the connection with their friends (but also indirectly driven by money because they can afford the luxury). People who are only indirectly effected by money when they say things online is the baseline for something valuable. In other words: if they NEED you to watch the video for them to survive, its not going to be good information. It will be good at keeping your attention but that is a fundamentally different thing from inherent value to your life. Someone could be really good at convincing you to off yourself but that doesn't mean its a good thing to do. Those 2 things are causally/logically independent, which could be a good way to think about this. The most valuable thing you might come across could be the most boring piece of shit "video" or blog ever, but the message is timeless. Whats paradoxical is that its often not that boring, because once you realize its worth something, you forget about its production quality. For videos I often realize the most timeless pieces of information were from people just yapping offscript when they sort of let the stars align on what they are really trying to tell you. It is a form of emotional connection that cannot be replicated when you have the idea of making money in your head. break it down to: - context: - the context where you find good stuff is when you are branching off of something else that you found valuable. Either a blog from someone who gave good advice or knows their shit, or from a topic of interest that some people are into. A weird example I can use is 4chan. 4chan has many weird and eccentric people, but they arent that stupid IQ wise. So if you look at what they use for tech, fitness, or even language learning: they have a generally sophisticated list of suggestions or linked resources that you can use. From their fitness board, they linked liamrossen's beginners health & fitness guide. Reading his fitness guide, I could instantly tell how timeless the thing was. Its a bloatless, no bullshit, no selling stuff guide of how to approach diet, exercise, and lifestyle around your physical health. To this day most things I know can still be conceptualized in relation to that guide from how foundationally sound it is. A few months later when I was referencing the guide, I read more through his site. I clicked on his guide for finance, where it stated: "if you are just getting into personal finance, this isn’t yet the guide for you. I recommend basic overviews.." which then linked the book: "Your Money or Your Life" and then r/personalfinance wiki. Like you can just tell there's no weird incentive here, he doesn't gas up the book WHAT SO EVER. This is organic marketing in action. Communicating the value of something, but its done so easily because it actually has value to be worth mentioning. I then go and read the book which, again, instantly I can tell this shit works. Theres no egotistical methodology that is specific to the person writing it, its made by 2 guys who have a story about something they are geniunely passionate about, and it is a strong foundation to conceptualize money through. To sum up the book, it basically is saying to view your money as converted life energy. 15$ and hour isn't about the 15$ its about the hour of time that you cannot get back. Time is the most valuable resource and being aware about where your converted time energy is going fixes any shitty spending habit you have. 20$ spent on uber eats is 2 hours of hard labor that was converted into 10 seconds of pleasure, plus 2 hours of bloating and stomach aches. Viewing the reality of the situation isn't something you can scam people its a form of empathy to make people see what they have in front of them. Okay back from that though, another person that talks about awareness and clarity very fondly is Dr K the psychiatrist gamer guy on youtube. - contents - what makes the inside of it worthwhile aside from its context? its said in simple language that doesn't require too much convoluted explanaition. it can often be some overarching principle that can be applied top down or becomes very obvious once you see it in your own life. a unique physical thing you might notice is how they look at the camera or if its in person at you. when you look in their eyes theres no sense of doubt or needing to prove anything. When you have seen the sky be blue everytime you go outside, theres no need to persuade anyone of it. Sooner or later that reality will appear to them, so its not really urgent that you need to tell them (but this is where you can find stuff out sooner rather than later, so try and understand what they mean). Find a way to detect if someone is sharing information out of geniune desire to connect with other people emotionally (both sided) rather than sell you a fake image of themselves in order to feed their audience one way (no connection because its their mask). Whats most dangerous is people who sell their hyper-ego in a way that is flaunted as authentic, people who sell their course or "show you how I got rich." 99% of the time they have a course/1-on-1 coaching session they are trying to promote. their original message can still be valuable, but their entire existence online is tainted by this direct monetary incentive.