I watched the video, but may have missed this, but shouldn't the testing have shown that the powder was substantially better?

Or did they not test the "putting some powder into the prewash" thing and so it was just "powder released all at once" vs "tablet released all at once".

Even there I'd expect some mild improvement from the powder mixing more easily than a plastic wrapped tablet (though maybe if the content inside is liquid this factor is reversed?).

Does this mean the big corps do have some chemical advantage that cancels out the crappy delivery mechanism?

Or does it mean that a mechanical spray prewash step isn't meaningfully improved by chemicals in most circumstances?

I was more alarmed by the wrappers being plastic. I had assumed they were some clever biodegradable thing but they're not.

The pods cost about 6x as much per load as powder.

So, even if they had equal cleaning performance, economically the powder would come ahead.

As it turns out, the 1/6th-as-expensive powder does an even better job than the pods, making the powder an even more obvious choice

(Unless you really value the handling convenience of using a pod and were willing to accept poorer results at a higher expense)

This is his (at least) third video on this. Your questions are answered in the earlier ones.

I believe expensive pods do have a chemical advantage, in the form of some enzymes that help break things down.

Given the stupid pods are way more expensive I think it's enough to show that there's no benefit.