YouTube was where I spent much of my free time during my teenage years. I was exposed to tons of excessive swearing and forced skits, but it didn't feel corporate. People just made content because they wanted to. As the years progressed, I started using YouTube less and less until now, where I only open it occasionally.
I despise the current state of the website. Everyone is trying to make a living from the website and create videos as long as possible to maximize watch time, which in turn leads to more ad revenue. This investment is then used to upgrade equipment and outsource work to paid editors. Since everyone on the site needs professional-looking videos to attract more customers, I mean, viewers. An unrelated product is advertised in almost every video, as nearly everyone with a sizable following is trying to make a living off the website, and they don't care that they look like shills.
My recommended tab went from rough around the edges, but entertaining game reviews and memes to "life advice" videos with the most vague suggestions possible and a clickbait headline or overly long video essays on entertainment with either the coldest takes ever conceived, or they bash basic quality of life features for "ruining immersion". I love Pokémon; it's my childhood series, but I don't want to watch an 8-hour "analysis" of Pokémon Omega Ruby (summarizing the game in the most verbose way possible to keep viewers watching longer). I do not want to listen to an 8-hour "analysis" of a children's sitcom that was cancelled after two seasons. (verbose, rambly summary) I have hobbies, friends, something vaguely resembling a life. I might be a college dropout who lives on social security, but I don't want to fall into the watch time ad trap.
Consise, 5-30 minute video game videos are so hard to find now. I ultimately gave up. Whenever I thought it'd be something better, I just got another rambly video with a sponsorship deal for some mobile game the YouTuber doesn't actually care about. It was either that or they covered a game that they got a "review copy of," and I couldn't trust their judgment of the game since I had no idea if they were being sincere or just shilling it.
Now that generative AI is public, the site is also infested with obviously generated content, primarily to increase ad consumption and profit for the human behind all the accounts with no effort required. The site is now a balancing act of avoiding corporate accounts and AI-generated content just to find a channel that is made from actual passion.
There's also the issue of the endless shady people who get famous off the website, only to get into drama because they were secretly evil. Those people have always been around on the website, but now it feels like the drama is fabricated for the sole purpose of generating online discourse, leading to more views, and, you guessed it, more ad revenue.
I hate feeling this way about the website since I was introduced to so many video games and books I loved through the YouTubers I enjoyed. They loved what they did and just wanted to talk about their hobbies. It was like having an older sibling tell you about the cool media they just had to say to you about. Now I feel like I'm watching a manufactured product.
