It sucks. No really, it does. It’s a shame, but there’s nearly nothing of value left. Nuke all your cookies and the likes and start in a fresh new browser. Wadda ya see? AI slop. Bullshit videos and nearly all thumbs seem AI generated. Lose your soul and drop into shorts… This place is even worse.
YouTube is doing full minute ads now too, I hear. I don’t suffer from that shit as I have decent adblock. Still though, one minute of a single ad between “free” content? That’s bonkers.
I have never used the site in the way it was meant to. I do not have a Google account and I do not subscribe to creators. I have a terminal app which pulls RSS feeds from YouTube. The app is named Newsboat. At any rate, this made me “subscribe” in my own way by following the RSS feed of YouTubers I liked. They all got placed in NewsBoat and I decided there what I wanted to watch and did.
I did like to scroll the YouTube feed in a browser though. Tumbling down would reveal something interesting I might click. Something that the algorithm correctly would mark as something I may like. It does not anymore. I can scroll from top to actual bottom and not feel the need to click a single video. This is sad. I loved this site. I found interesting people here. Stuff that tickled my fancy. Watch something by Banana Universe and I got more banana content. This made sense. I apparently loved watching banana-related videos, so it would make sense I’d love more from other sources.
It does not work like this anymore though. It’s all crap.
Don’t get me wrong though. The people I subscribe to still put out quality content! It’s just getting impossible to find that content on the YouTube home page.
