Making YouTube bearable

YouTube is my all time favorite website. For visual learners, I believe it’s still one of the best tools out there, even in today’s AI/LLM world.

What are YouTube’s interests?

  • Engagement/Time spent on platform
  • Ad revenue
  • Due to ad-blockers, YT also seems to push YT Premium

What they currently compete with

  • Brainrot content (Tiktok, Insta Reels etc.)
  • Short attention span
  • Entertainment4

What YT is naturally good at

  • Long form content:
    • Video Podcasts
    • Educational content
    • Documentaries
    • Workout videos

What YT did wrong:

  • Prioritize entertainment content instead of educational content
    • Probably ad revenue related
  • Does not double down
  • Have a “learning/tutorial category”
    • I’ve been searching in the past for , why is there no collection for it?
  • Move almost completely away from the subscriber model to a feed. People still ask for

Things that make it more bearable:

  • https://github.com/gijsdev/ublock-hide-yt-shorts
  • https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44416009
    • https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/youtube-no-translation/
  • https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sponsorblock/
  • https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/enhancer-for-youtube/
  • Block shorts:
    • https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/
  • https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-recommended-videos/
  • Subscribe to channels via RSS: