What's wrong with those 10-dollar sharpeners that are like the expensive one in the video but not electric?
Good question, shame it wasn't covered in the video.
If I was to hazard a guess, in my experience from using other budget kitchen options; they would be flimsy, prone to break down and wouldn't do what you want to do very well and every time you use it you'd wish you'd have just gotten the expensive one. It's worth looking into though, I've always used a wet stone so I have zero experience with those type of sharpers.
Can't believe internet shaquille missed the simplest way to do it (in my experience) - sandpaper. I sharpen everything with sandpaper on a leather strop (or on a stack of magazines if I'm somewhere other than home). Trail the edge rather than lead with it (so the opposite of using a whetstone). You'll need to strop it afterwards to take the wire edge off but it creates a strong, teardrop-shaped edge profile and gets to razor sharp quite quickly. Vary your sandpaper grits based on need, but I find unless a blade is really fucked 1500 grit usually works fine. Take it up a notch with some stropping compound on a leather strop to start getting really, really sharp.
I learned to use a whetstone when I worked in a kitchen and it's really not that difficult. Practice with a shitty knife that gets dull quickly and you should be pretty proficient after like 5 sessions. And it's kind of meditative and relaxing.
A well-sharpened knife, that isn't super hard (ex: Wusthof Ikon), can go quite a long time without needing to be resharpened if you're using a honing rod.
Harder knives will hold an edge for longer but you have to be careful not to chip the edge on a bone or something (:im-vegan: so no worries here).
