Copyright SlashGear
It really wasn't that long ago that people didn't treat being a YouTuber as a real job. Things have changed. Now people earn big money on YouTube, in some cases making them millionaires. The big ones are practically at the forefront of the discussion, especially in the tech industry. Think Marques Brownlee, JerryRigEverything, and Mrwhosetheboss. When you want to buy a new phone or a pair of earbuds, you probably check their reviews first. But maybe you're tired of watching a big YouTuber you loved produce lower-quality content, accept questionable sponsors, and get embroiled in silly controversies. Or perhaps you're looking for a change of pace. Whatever the reason, there are a ton of lesser-known YouTubers out there that deserve more recognition than they get. It's challenging to define "lesser known" since that could mean someone with 100 subscribers or 100,000. For simplicity's sake, we're going to focus on tech YouTubers that have fewer than 1 million subscribers. That's chump change in the YouTube universe. For reference, someone like Mr. Beast has 450 million. We've selected a small handful that cover a wide range of topics, from reviews to deeper philosophical discussions of consumer tech. Benn Jordan is best known as a musician; The Flashbulb is one of his musical aliases. On the side, Benn maintains a truly incredible YouTube channel covering a wide range of topics from the problematic ADHD medication industry to the clever (and terrifying) ways someone could spy on you using acoustics. An incredible amount of production value and research goes into every single video, and Benn consistently manages to explain complex topics in digestible terms while injecting his own unique sense of humor. You don't need to be a musician to appreciate his content, as his most popular videos often don't even touch on music at all. Benn's videos are pointedly relevant. In one video, he cooks up methods of outsmarting the thousands of AI-enabled surveillance cameras across the U.S. In another, he created a "poison pill" to contaminate the training data of AI music generation software. In one of my personal favorites, he tests the self-driving capabilities of a Tesla and looks on in horror as it mows down a mannequin child after stopping for it. Even when videos are light-hearted and fun, you learn the answers to questions no one ever thought to ask. In one video, he "stores" an image file in a bird by training the bird to sing a bird-shaped waveform. Benn's work has gone beyond mere educational entertainment. His examination of AI cameras pushed the FTC to investigate surveillance companies. His discussion on the LRAD technology used by the military and police as a sound weapon earned him a lawsuit threat. He has also been working to help artists use his poison pill technology to make their songs untrainable by AI. A YouTuber who talks the talk and walks the walk is one who deserves a subscription. TechAltar is headed by YouTuber Marton Barcza, who delivers a mix of tech news and discussions on technology itself. The meat and potatoes of his channel covers tech market trends (with the occasional intersection of tech-related politics), such as his video about how AMD came to dominate the CPU market, or China's crackdown on kids playing video games. Another chunk of his videos analyzes issues in tech, such as his video about why software in recent years seems to just get worse and worse. He'll cover cutting-edge emerging technologies, his personal experience with open-source software, and even occasional tech reviews; He reviewed the Fairphone 6, part of a lineup of phones designed to last you half a decade. In short, there's something for everyone here. If you like to keep your finger on the pulse of the tech market in all its various aspects, TechAltar is for you. If you want answers to those questions you've always had (like, for example, why expensive phones dominate the market), TechAltar makes great explainers. The videos are well-produced and well-researched, and they maintain a lighter 15- to 25-minute runtime. Marton is a genial host who's easy to like and keeps things light with an occasional dash of humor and sarcasm. At times, he expands beyond the purview of his typical content, such as his video on what isolation did to the tech industry in Syria. Marton has other channels on YouTube and Nebula, including his tech news channel The Friday Checkout. The latter is well worth a subscription if you want weekly summaries a la TechLinked, minus all the over-the-top humor. It's genuinely a surprise that TechAltar is not already a channel with double-digit millions of subscribers, considering the polish and care evident in the videos. Laurie Wired makes a YouTube channel intended for a tech-savvy audience. She's a talented researcher at Google who runs this exceptionally well-made YouTube channel in her free time. In it, you'll find both technical explainers — like why simply fading audio is computationally intensive — to more philosophical and hypothetical discussions — like how coding is more of a linguistic exercise than a mathematical one. All of her videos go into big (sometimes existential) topics in computing. Her videos are well-produced and rarely go beyond 30 minutes, perfect for those with busy schedules. Even better, she provides follow-along demonstrations of what she does on screen. In her video about the original sin of computing — a discussion of potential exploits buried deep in computer compilers — viewers can try out the code for themselves. Further, she has a GitHub repository with various programs she's made that are free to use. She's a breath of fresh air in an industry where AI vibe coding is making everything worse. Laurie won't be for everyone. A lot of her content is admittedly quite esoteric; If you've never even heard of RISC-V vector processing (to give one example), then that's a good sign whether this channel is in your wheelhouse. We'd recommend Laurie to computing professionals and enthusiasts; Otherwise, you could easily get lost in the lingo, even with a passing familiarity with computer terminology and programming. In any case, it's a treat to watch for the more nerdy among us. She's also quite active on her social media. Follow her on X and Instagram to get extra educational tidbits that don't make it into her regular videos. If you want an expert's analysis of an in-ear monitor (IEM) or pair of headphones you're considering buying, ask Crinacle. Crinacle is a household name among audiophiles, thanks in large part to his detailed ranking of headphones and earbuds. He's also been gradually building a YouTube channel under the same name. What makes Crinacle's channel worthy of a subscription is how he tries to find a middle ground between audiophiles (who don't mind dropping $2,000 on a pair of headphones) and everyday consumers (who see the AirPods Max and the Sony WH-1000XM6 as a luxury). Crinacle doesn't lecture from a holier-than-thou position (as audiophiles sometimes do), but provides perspective while acknowledging that sound is subjective and that everyone has different needs for earbuds and headphones. His review of the AirPods Pro 3 is a great example. Many audiophiles sneer at AirPods in general, but Crinacle praises them for the improvements they have made, while also criticizing the areas where they have failed — from that audiophile vantage point. These sorts of expert perspectives can be highly useful in determining how well a pair of headphones performs. Also, unlike most audiophiles, Crinacle discusses products from a budget-conscious perspective. While he does have a video discussing his $75,000 pair of Sennheiser headphones, he has many videos rating the best cheap hardware. For those more interested in speakers, there are occasional speaker reviews as well. His discussions of everything from choosing songs for testing headphones to how challenging it is to design earphones round out the channel with a wide variety of content. All in all, there's a lot here to love if you're interested in HiFi audio. We live in an era of convenience. From the comfort of your bed, you can buy and ship almost anything to your doorstep, watch any movie or read any book, and even work remotely. But that convenience often comes with an unseen cost — in a literal and often psychological sense. The YouTube channel Reject Convenience discusses how the technology that makes our lives so easy is often inadvertently hurting us. The channel primarily covers issues of privacy, and refuses sponsorships of any kind to assure viewers that there is no conflict of interest. A great example is the video on Data Deletion Services like Incogni and DeleteMe. On the surface, these seem like straightforward and easy ways to remove the information that data brokers collect on you. The video reveals that these services only temporarily delete a small portion of the publicly available data, leaving a lot of the more concerning data untouched. In another, Reject Convenience performed an experiment living two years with a dumb phone (also known as a minimalist phone) and noted a number of benefits to mental health and finances, with some unanticipated downsides. The channel has covered many different topics, such as VPNs and AirPods. This channel is on the newer side, with fewer than two dozen videos in the current Reject Convenience style. Videos are released approximately every two months. The style of video, featuring a cartoonish mascot talking to the camera instead of a person, may not be for everyone. However, it has a lot of potential in a day and age where everyone is beginning to notice the subtle cost of tech companies invading every aspect of our lives.
