Hey Lemmy fam,
After years of wading through endless crap—click‑bait thumbnails, algorithmic rabbit holes, and non‑stop ads—I finally stopped using YouTube. Below are the main reasons I walked away and a handful of privacy‑friendly alternatives that let you keep the content you love without the garbage.
YouTube’s recommendation engine throws endless crap at you, turning a 5‑minute tutorial into a 2‑hour binge you never signed up for.
What I do instead:
- Lemmy – I follow specific communities (
r/technology,c/firefox,c/degoogle ``) and browse chronologically or by “Hot”. No hidden agenda, just the posts I chose. - RSS feeds – Subscribe to the channels I actually care about via an RSS reader (Feedly, Newsboat, or Lemmy’s built‑in RSS). New videos appear as they’re posted, no surprise junk.
Every view, pause, and hover is logged and sold to advertisers. Even with an ad‑blocker, YouTube still harvests data through its API calls and cookies.
What I do instead:
- PeerTube – Decentralized, ad‑free video hosting. Each instance runs its own moderation and privacy policies. You can even self‑host a node if you want full control.
This reads like a click-bait youtube video’s script… Soulless Chatbot-like language, no real information offered at all, and the content is a huge letdown (“here’s my recommendation on how to ‘walk away and keep the content you love’ - just walk away and forget all about the content you love! It’s that simple!”).
Peertube has no content whatsoever. The current best option for privacy is using invidious mirrors.
For some reason i haven’t seen an ad on YouTube since April. I didn’t sign up and still get an occasional pop up about a free trial. Not sure what happened
Did you install ublock origin?
i put only the “few” channels that put out good stuff i think it’s worth watching on an RSS feed and disable recommendations. using invidious, of course.
OP, be frank, did ChatGPT wrote this? Or am I being just paranoid of em dashes and that format?
Actually, it’s not chat GPT it lumo by proton i used to write this. The reason why I used an AI chatbot to write this is because I’m so bad at spellings i recommend you try it. Here is the link https://lumo.proton.me/ yes I actually stop watching youtube
Spell checkers in text editors damage the planet less.
No
Fair, English is not my native language so I understand being worried about bad spelling but I think there’s more charm to it than anything AI can generate
I limit myself to the old reliable spell checking included on Firefox
English is my native language and I rely a lot on spell check.
Subscribing to channels with RSS and using third-party YouTube clients is still using YouTube for content.
The suggestion you gave about using peer tube is fantastic, but the content does need to increase some.
the five minute tutorial then turns into two hour binge you never signed up for is youtube’s fault! it’s youtube’s fault I waste two hours watching bullshit videos!! we need to fight back!
Using apps like Grayjay or Newpipe allow you to just subscribe to certain channels and don’t see any recommendations at all. I haven’t used the YT algorithm in years and also don’t get any ads. Instead, I just watch the content creators I like and nothing else. On grayjay you can also add other services like Nebula, so the variety is even higher. I really don’t get how people can watch YT with the algorithm and with ads, but it seems too much effort for most people to look for alternatives.
I feel like I have a very different experience of YouTube than most people on here. UBlock on desktop and Revanced on mobile means no ads / sponsored bits, which is absolutely essential. But I also don’t have a problem with the dreaded ‘algorithm’.
I don’t know if it’s the kinds of videos I watch (nothing political, or popular) or just not being in the US, but I don’t get recommended AI slop or crazy propaganda. I just looked through the Home feed the app, looks like half of it is channels I’ve subscribed to and most of the rest is channels I’ve watched recently but haven’t subscribed to. There’s a couple of videos from channels I don’t reconognise, so they could be weird slop but that’s not the vibe I’m getting at all, and if I clicked and they were I’d just tag it “Don’t Recommend this Channel”.
Disapproving of YouTube because it’s an evil hegemon makes sense. Supporting alternatives is great (I pay for nebula, even though I end up mostly watching the creators’ videos on YouTube). But I’m always curious about why other people seem to have such a terrible experience of the algorithm.
I feel like I have a very different experience of YouTube than most people on here. UBlock on desktop and Revanced on mobile means no ads / sponsored bits, which is absolutely essential. But I also don’t have a problem with the dreaded ‘algorithm’.
i do something similar with the adblocking and it think its the 3rd biggest reason why i haven’t yet completely degoogled myself since youtube is a nice experience without that enshitification.
i also use firefox’s containerization feature and that along with only viewing my subscriptions list seems to help with the algorithmic recommendation creep of fluff & propaganda.
The algorithm recommends things it thinks you’ll like or have watched before. So if its recommending AI slop, it’s because you’re watching AI slop already. People just refuse to take the time to “train” your algorithm (and this isn’t just YouTube, it’s all algorithmic based platforms). You like / dislike stuff, hide things, give feedback, etc, and eventually you only really see the stuff you actually want to see. Sure some things slip through but 🤷♀️ I use YouTube and will continue to only bc the people I watch don’t post anywhere else, unfortunately.
How do I upload video to Lemmy?
How is Nebula? It has some creators that I like, but does it have a good mobile app?
Zionist, unfortunately.
I like it a lot. A lot of the YouTubers I watch are in there and I found some other channels I enjoy and their original series jetlag is great.
If you have hoopla with your library you can check if they have binge passes for nebula to check the channels and the app (I only use it on my android phone with mostly no issues). I can also send you a guest pass for a free week if you’d like, just DM me your email
I’ll just try it. I don’t need a guest pass, I can just pay for it.
Nebula is invite only for posting videos.
That’s fine as long as there’s enough content. I prefer long form content which I know they host.
I use NewPipe on mobile and freetube on desktop, although you probably considered them since they’re often recommended first when you just start looking into youtube alternatives
Ublock + SponsorBlock + the Unhook browser extension to hide everything except subscriptions + one custom Ublock filter to hide the suggested videos after the end which they snuck back in a few weeks ago
Unhook is really great
As much as I would like to ditch it, there really isn’t a good equivalent. Peertube and Nebula don’t have the amount of content I’m intetested in.
On Amy social media platform, subjecting yourself to their algorithm is a really bad idea anyway. I treat YouTube like Imgur, I don’t browse the site unless some interesting content link sheds me there. Suggestions and auto play are off in my Newpipe with Sponsorblock. I stick to handpicked videos or my curated subscriptions only.
I really hope Peertube becomes more popular amongst content creators.
uBlock or Brave blocks normal ads, including the banners and injected commercials.
SponsorBlock blocks in-video sponsor mentions.
DeArrow removes clickbait thumbnails and replaces them with random frames from the video, and switches clickbait titles to crowdsourced descriptive titles.
I’d leave too if those stopped working, but they work for now.
Revanced has incorporated DeArrow.
I’m amazed dearrow is so aggressive with their attempt at monetization. Usually these addon devs ask for donations rather than trying to squeeze you for a buck or playing waiting games.
