YouTube is still useful. It's a giant repository of videos that get
indexed by search engines.
The way to use it is:
1) know what you want to watch beforehand
2) search using a different engine like DDG
3) use yt-dl to grab the video and watch offline
The mistake would be to "log in" to the actual site, and click on the
"recommended" rubbish and all that algorithmic cruft to manipulate,
data-mine your soul and mislead you.
"know what you want to watch beforehand" - 100% this. Over at least the past few years, this is almost entirely what I do and it has helped youtube remain a good experience for me. In general, I rarely do research on youtube or twitter or even googling or even reddit. In most instances, I'm better served by just starting with the wikipedia page or some specialized encyclopedia (e.g., Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) and then going from there. On sites like youtube, I either go in knowing precisely what I'm trying to watch or to watch new videos from a select few channels I subscribe to (usually silly stuff like press conferences of football managers etc.).
This is just good internet hygiene: don't go online unless you have something specific to look up or research.
This is how it used to be until blogs started up with daily posts, then Youtube, then social media's endless firehose. Suddenly you could start treating the Internet like TV. There was always something to tune into.
Personally, the algorithm works very effectively at stealing my time.
Bikini catwalks, scamming phone scammers, MMA fights, math entertainment, people who build cool shit.
This is of course subjective, but I basically can't open youtube.com without wasting 10 minutes.
If I ever get the idea of going to YouTube for a legit purpose (e.g. finding a conference talk, or listening to music), my brain's first response is "oh no", because I know I have to endure at least ten minutes of entertainment. YouTube's TikTok clone is even worse, but not as good as actual TikTok.
> I basically can't open youtube.com without wasting 10 minutes
It's the opposite for me. These days when I have 10 minutes I open YouTube and there's nothing interesting. It recommends me irrelevant stuff, stuff I've seen already, shorts or trending video crap interspersed in between in case I've suddenly become real interested in the Kardashians and football news.
There's https://unhook.app/ to remove recommendation elements (front page feed, side bar recommendations, etc.). I use it to leave only the search bar and my subscription feed. YouTube feels so much better.
The way to use it is:
1) know what you want to watch beforehand
2) search using a different engine like DDG
3) use yt-dl to grab the video and watch offline
The mistake would be to "log in" to the actual site, and click on the "recommended" rubbish and all that algorithmic cruft to manipulate, data-mine your soul and mislead you.