I also listen to things at 1x speed because I don’t care for the audio artifacts from the speedup process, but I have to be in the right mood for it. If I’m too energetic, the book won’t hold my attention and my mind will wander to other things— I’ll mentally shut it off and have no idea what’s going on when I try to resume the book.
If I really pay attention, I can sometimes 'hear' fragments of words and individual words - it's like a partial subvocalisation (something like "I listen 1x speed plenty fast visual fill detail"). If I deliberately slow myself down (as I often do if I'm particularly enjoying a certain section, or if a section is particularly intricate), I subvocalise as normal, but at the same time I lose the visual aspects of picturing a scene. I start to hear the prose, but lose the visualisation.
I guess we both get what we want our of the experience, but at different speeds.
I'm not sure why this is done - whether it is to make the video easier to follow for non-native speakers, or to give a more 'authoritative' feel (slower speech = more confidence etc?), but I find such videos unbearable to watch at x1 speed.
So for me it's not about rushing and not enjoying the experience. It's about listening to it at a speed which is bearable: and hence enjoyable.
It's to stretch the videos that are just under 10 minutes to longer than 10 minutes so they can add mid-roll ads.
Whenever you're wondering why the video is too long, or why the author is somewhat rambling around the point, or why they include those "like and subscribe" sections in every video (sometimes at the beginning, because you'd close the tab otherwise), the answer is always to find that sweet spot that accommodates the ads. It's also why channels tend to upload videos of similar length, regardless of the topic. Sometimes they have to cut the script short, other times they have to find a way to lengthen it.
Warren Huart does this end of the video, and I now really appreciate it when he and others do it. I mostly watch YouTube on my Samsung TV, and it takes forever to navigate through the YouTube app's onscreen menus with my remote control to find the Like button. If they don't talk for long enough at that point, I get kicked out of the menu and dumped into an ad & another autoplay before I get time to click their like button.
If the YouTube algorithm has any sense (probably not), a Like after someone has just watched the entirety of a 20 minute video at normal speed should have more weight than someone who clicks Like in the first 2 seconds of clicking play.
If we use walking as an analogy, sometimes people really do need to slow down and smell the roses, but certain speeds of walking for certain body types/fitness levels are just genuinely awkward/painful...
It's one of the reasons I prefer books to audiobooks - I can slow down and enjoy the speech/intricate descriptions, but virtually skip over 'functional' words.
Mind you audiobooks have less filler than natural speech so they’re a little more information dense than someone shooting from the hip.
I find the best way to enjoy them is on a nice run where the situation holds me captive and I can’t retreat into a more distractive media.
In my experience audiobooks can’t keep my attention, not fast paced enough, and I pull out my phone. As soon as that happens I no longer hear/process the audiobook.
But if I’m running it’s juuuust perfect enough to keep my attention and sort of embed the ideas into my subconscious even if I’m not actively listening.
It’s a lot like speed reading in that way. With speed reading I always felt like I was rushing and had no idea what I’m reading. But ask me questions and I could recap the information back flawlessly.
However, I purposefully avoid speed reading fiction because it detracts from the experience. You get the info, but you lose the feel.
Besides commuting you can do other things like house chores.
For me audiobooks have opened reading in a whole new way. I used to think that I was dyslexic, but I've since discovered that the right term is subvocalization. I was slow reader as a kid and never grew out of it. So reading is really slow for me, I've tried to work on it, but in the meanwhile I might as well be listening audiobooks.
Audible's 3x is intelligible even for a non-native speaker like me. Smart Audiobook Player's 3x is atrocious.
Also, different audio systems read at different speed. Have you tried pocket at 2 or 2.5 x? Still too slow?
That'll get you all the way up to 3x. It's fantastic.
One of the ways I find books is to think of something I'm interested in then go to https://hackernewsbooks.com/ and search for recommendations. The best books I've read recently were ones I can across on HN. If I find recommendations then I'll go on audible and search for an audiobook version. I don't always find them, maybe 1/10 are available, but it's been a useful tactic in general.