Places like Y'tube are the future for guitar lessons or at least an additional resource for learning. One on one with a good teacher is still the best way but Youtube provides a vast and (for now) free resource.
Unfortunately, it's not a particularly friendly place for the tutors (Most of whom are amateurs like myself) as you can have your lessons pulled without warning . Doesn't happen often but there's a handful of artists / publishers, etc who don't like their stuff being tought / covered.
I think it's a good thing though. Kids these days want instant gratification from their social media, games consoles and other gadgets and learning guitar doesn't provide this. So, anything that makes it more interesting and easier for them is a good thing. We need more kids picking up guitar (The guitar manufacturers certainly do!) so anything that helps and gets them to stick at it for the long term...!
Your logic is sound, a one-on-one guitar teacher is still the best way to learn correct technique and form. YT makes a good case for itself because smarter teachers often promote playing not note-for-note as some teachers do, but intentionally suggesting the student make the song his own. Doing so helps keep instructional content on YT, while the student learns to play for the song, himself and the accompanying band, while the teacher inculcates a better understanding of how music *
theoretically should be* taught.
You need not display a "killer instinct" for making music. You'll likely discover what pays the bills and puts food on the table is having a "lock" on what you hold dearest to you, so whatever music you do play is your own, that no one can take away from you.
But you know what? Those of us that learned in that age kind of found our own style a little quicker, even if it was just copying someone else's style. We didn't necessarily obsess with playing it "just like the record" (which is not to say we didn't try like hell). But we also didn't necessarily copy the player's technique (or the less successful version someone had videoed on a smart phone) - we found a way to do it, whether it was the same or completely different.
I spend hours upon hours with the Ozzy albums and a couple Star Licks/Star Jams tapes trying to cop Randy Rhoads' style. I never did get it, either, but I got enough to be happy with what I did.
Kids are picking up technique quickly now, but it's the next step that's crucial. It's one thing to copy David Grissom's solos - it's a whole other thing to come up with a voice like David Grissom's.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to yell at some kids to get off my lawn.
Exactly what I'm trying to say. While many music teachers are sticklers for playing note for note, there is a futility is doing so...because each of us is a creative being, we like to stray ever so little from the exact notes or phrases and make them our own. While this is entirely acceptable in music, in other realms, it may not be. IOW, twisting the facts in order to re-write history favorably, or re-stating someone else's intellectual property as your own. Most educators call this plagiarism, and enforce policy against such.
However, re-phrasing and playing an artist's music in your own way, IIRC, but not being paid for your work, is entirely acceptable and legal. The reason associations like ASCAP and BMI exist is to protect copyrighted music from being played in its original form and being paid for it, without paying royalties to the original artist or songwriter.
In conclusion, my feeling is that wise teachers will promote students who read and absorb what they are studying, then apply what they already learned so that what they go on to play or teach themselves is in their own style, not the original artist. The original artist is the one who should receive the credit for the original song, but any re-phrasing, re-wording, or variation of the original form is cause for allowing the student his own form of expressing his thanks for what the teacher has taught him.
