YT on a clean slate is horrendous. Give it a few days and it becomes bearable. I’m mostly impressed.

Though there is a growing number of anecdotes surrounding (niche|not palatable to SV) channels who’s subscribers don’t get notified despite the bell thing being on, new videos no longer in feeds, and even people getting unsubscribed for no apparent reason.

This is a problem, as I’d sooner give up peanut butter than only be served videos with open mouthed dweebs on a rainbow background for thumbnails.

o_m

I deleted my youtube/google account and started using RSS feeds instead.

nullandvoid

The only sane way to consume YouTube these days.

I also just manage a curated list of channels and consume via RSS, with YT perpetually blocked, short of a few re-review days per year.

RL_Quine

Youtube is also basically unwatchable without both adblock and sponsorblock. At this point most videos are are at least 1/3rd clipped by the latter.

abenga

Has anyone found a reliable way to block the ads on Android TV that isn't "root your TV and install and use this weird App you get from this website here"? Would a Pi-Hole work long-term?

pjbk

Yes. SmartTubeNext: https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTubeNext. I use it with a FireTV stick since it's much easier than hacking my Samsung TV. It supports SponsorBlock too. It lacks some YT features but if you just want to browse and watch videos it works wonderfully.