> As laypeople it is too complex for them to understand. Often they simply ignore the code if they personally believe the code is unnecessary. It takes years of experience to understand why you should follow instructions you'd rather not.

Same is true about anything from cooking to crocheting to brushing teeth. Documentation isn't written for those who know, but for those want to know, and those who know better and would rather not follow it tend to not read it in the first place. It's as true of ISO standards as it is of instruction manual to your induction stove, or electric toothbrush.

> That's part of why the apprentice period is so long.

I'm going to bet that technically, post-COVID, it's "$300 + few hours of videos and a quiz" long.

(At least that seems to be the case for basic electrical work over here, in Poland, according to the electrician who did lights in my apartment the other day.)

> I have never seen a YouTube video where anyone even mentioned the code unless they were a professional or engineer.

Perhaps because they have no access to it without spending unreasonable amounts of money on it, unless they were a professional or engineer? YouTube videos are bargain bin education. A random video you referred to costed less to make than getting a bootleg copy of the code would. Probably whole channel did.

> Most people are not very smart. Making the code free isn't going to make them smarter.

Nothing will help "most people". But the rest would benefit.

BTW. most contractors are in the "not very smart" group too, which is a possible reason why you won't get many answers from them - they're either unable to, or plain unwilling to entertain people asking "why".

> I'm the one guy on subreddits telling people not to modify random beams in their house unless they know how it ties into the rest of the structure to determine the structural impact. 99% of people reply that I'm over-reacting. That's how they act towards the code. Slap it real hard and if it seems solid it's good to go.

It's a separate subject, but thing is, they're probably right.

In my experience, the difference between a load-bearing wall and a regular one boils down, for most people, to the question of whether they need a hammer drill or will regular cordless drill suffice. The hole is happening either way. I used to be the guy worrying about it a lot, until I noticed that even contractors don't care. Unless I'm literally asking them to cut a new entryway through the load-bearing part, they don't even parse the question.

Was I right to worry? Are they wrong? Well, I presume no to both, or else apartment building collapse would be daily news. Then again, I can't tell for sure, because of people in power thinking "it's too complex for [laypeople] to understand" and gate-keeping standards and codes.

SMPTE Makes Its Standards Freely Accessible