Absolutely you need to know who you are dealing with. No different than books or any other material. That’s why I don’t like picking up video recipes off randos. As much as you hate Alton at least you know what to expect and adjust accordingly. Besides it’s very rare that I have all of the incidents needed in a recipe available at any given time. Cooking an exact recipe is 2x the work as cooking an inspired by recipe. Often the author achieves similar outcomes using a technique you aren’t familiar with or don’t prefer and you need to know to skip that and do it your preferred way. People who don’t know how to cook don’t know what to omit or shortcut and so cooking becomes that much harder for them.

I cook probably 6-8 meals a week and still sometimes things burn due to sugar content or stick due to moisture/heat issues. New recipes are always complicated even if you generally know what you are doing. Even stuff that should be stupid easy like fucking “easy Mac” that powder clumps unless you find the perfect addition technique and even then it still might clump.