Some of the things mentioned in the video might not be ideal, but I wouldn't blame the club for deliberately trying to scam you in all those cases. If the weather forecast isn't looking that great, for example, I think it's reasonable to expect you to show up and only allow you to cancel without penalty if the weather actually is too bad to fly at the scheduled time. I've had cases where I thought the weather would be bad but it turned out to be at least MVFR when the actual time came. Another time my instructor and I did some ground school stuff and after an hour or so the weather cleared up enough to at least get in a few laps around the pattern. In other cases we couldn't do exactly what we had originally planned but we went somewhere else or practiced something else. A couple times my instructor even filed an IFR flight plan and we were able to take off IFR and fly somewhere we could operate VFR. It was really cool to get some "flight by reference to instruments" time in my logbook on those occasions
If you can't do exactly what you planned in a lesson it's far from a complete waste of time or money or a "joy ride." I think you just have to account for the fact that you won't be able to practice exactly what you want every single time. I think almost no matter what you're doing you're learning and gaining valuable experience that will make you a better pilot. You're not just building time for your instructor but for yourself as well. The reasons why the instructor benefits from building time apply to you as well, otherwise time wouldn't be one of the main qualifications for a job, for insurance purposes, checkout privileges, etc.
Sometimes you might be delayed because the previous student didn't get the airplane back in time or maybe there's a sudden maintenance issue that needs to be addressed. I don't think that's much different than being forced to wait past your scheduled time at a doctor's office or wherever. If they scheduled the annual maintenance in conflict with your lesson and then tried to charge you that would be ridiculous of course, but I doubt it was anything like that.
Regarding the time to solo, someone who solos at 15 hours might not kill themselves most of the time but I really wonder how many people can develop sufficient skill in the fundamentals, steep turns, slow flight, stalls, ground reference maneuvers, radio communications, takeoffs and landings, traffic pattern operations, engine failures and emergency operations, etc. in just 15 hours to really solo safely in case anything goes wrong.
The one thing I really disagreed with is that you should be able to get your PPL in the minimum number of hours and that you don't really begin learning until after that. IMHO you had better have learned a hell of a lot before you get the PPL or else someone is being very negligent. You may need more hours just because of bad luck with the weather or because you live somewhere that's not ideal for training. It may take you longer to learn everything to practical test standards than the average person (certainly the case for me, and generally for people who start later in life). You may also require more hours if you're working with CFIs that are more strict about making sure you really know your stuff and not just the bare minimum to pass the test.
