As an university level educator my experience is:

Copying is a good way to learn if there are no exact instructions. E.g. covering a song is learning to listen as much as it is learning to play. But if someone made you a "10 steps to cover this song" video those lessons won't really stick.

My experience is that most people will only start to deeply think about a topic once they encounter it practically themselves. I can tell people about different signal levels and impedance all I want, it seems only once they plug wrong things together and wonder why the result sounds bad the light bulb goes on.

Copying can be great if it is done on your own as you will encounter all kinds of questions that matter in practise.