I‘m not super well versed in the literature but I know this has been researched, and—unless you are being hyperbolic—it completely fails the sniff test.
As OP points out, SRS is optimized for memory retention. You will almost certainly encounter many more words watching a two hour long video, but you certainly won‘t retain nearly as many words as half an hour of SRS.
Actually you can combine the two. Use the two hour long video to encounter new vocabulary in context, put the new vocabulary in your Anki deck, and review it with optimized SRS. You get the best of both worlds. As a bonus you often remember the source which will help you recall... This is actually common enough pattern that it has a name: Vocabulary mining.
Oh thanks, I didn't know there was a name for the thing I've been doing. Vocabulary mining is a nice term.
I agree with your general point too. People are correct to say SRS only helps with memorising and not with learning, but this is only a problem if you haven't developed functional learning techniques or you have to learn something you don't enjoy. Good learning essentially hinges on interest and excitement, and making the thing you're learning relatable or catchy.
If you have exams and deadlines, this can be hard. If you've no exams and no deadlines, just flashcard anything interesting that comes your way, include context and jokes, and focus on enjoying yourself. Delete flashcards with a smile if they annoy you a few repetitions down the line. Make all your own cards. Invent funny stuff, find quirky facts that stand out.
E.g., the area of Ireland is 84,421km^2 - all powers of 2. I never had a "yardstick" for big areas, now I do. Borneo is nearly nine Irelands in size.
Or another example, French Polynesia has 121 islands, 75 of which are inhabited. I found this fact shocking, so I thought I'd put it in to a flashcard. After some quick reflection, I'm sure you too could come up with ways to make those numbers stand out.
Another - the title of Wittgenstein's "Tractatus Logico Philosophicus" - where truth tables were popularised - ends in SOS. No more forgetting the title, or where truth tables are from!
In summary - learn things you like, and make it spicy for you.
I've tried it in a few situations (e.g. my driving license theory test) and yeah it's absolutely awful and I quickly stopped. My modus operandi is obsidian notes->flashcards->revision to keep my knowledge up. However, a lot of people do actually do that!
People will genuinely download top x wordlists for a language and try to learn from them. Hideous, but they do it.
> People will genuinely download top x wordlists for a language and try to learn from them.
I’ve done that, and I’ve even created a whole SRS app to learn kanji which does that by default (https://shodoku.app).
I think this is common practice for the first 1000 words, and I don’t exactly recommend against it. Unless your target language is close to another language you already know, you are going to have to learn your first 1000 words somehow, and you will not learn them by comprehensible input in any reasonable time, unless you are actually living in the language area, and cannot use other languages.
I actually bought a vocabulary book which has 1000 basic words and example sentences and puts them in categories (e.g. work, travel, food, etc.). I then downloaded an Anki deck from the book and use it. To be fair though, I first read the word in the book, and practice it with a red-sheet (albeit in reverse, i.e. from english and try to recall it in japanese).
As for my kanji learning app. I made it so the first time you see a kanji, it does not hide any information, and it shows you the strokes in order as you write it on first encounter, after that you review it normally.
As OP points out, SRS is optimized for memory retention. You will almost certainly encounter many more words watching a two hour long video, but you certainly won‘t retain nearly as many words as half an hour of SRS.
Actually you can combine the two. Use the two hour long video to encounter new vocabulary in context, put the new vocabulary in your Anki deck, and review it with optimized SRS. You get the best of both worlds. As a bonus you often remember the source which will help you recall... This is actually common enough pattern that it has a name: Vocabulary mining.