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.
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.
Edit: And if you are on android, revanced does all of the above. Thanks for reminding us, StarlingUK
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.
It is a bit unusual.