by NeverCeaseToCrease » August 17th, 2017, 1:17 am
People will receive more satisfaction from struggling through a book and producing a finished product without help rather than, as you said, "presented it to them on a golden plate." From the satisfaction from folding the first model, it will lead the reader to fold the rest of the models in the book, which by then they are likely to continue origami for a long time.
And yes, videos are good for teaching people how to do one or two models, but the main problem I see is that beginners might not know what models are too easy and unsatisfactory, too difficult and causes frustration, or at the right difficulty. This means that if a viewer folded one model, they might look for another, but give up if they find it's too difficult and stop doing origami all together. On the other hand, origami books are either all at the same level or goes in increasing difficulty.
I agree with all of you, that videos are helpful, especially for the longer/harder models that take too much work to diagram, or for people who only want to publish a few designs without having to write a book. But I still think that books are better at getting origamists to stick to the art for a long time.
Also, it appears that Mariano Zavala has added the names of the models' artists to his/her videos.
To answer the original question again, the origami community is going to start declining even more, now that school is starting...