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.
fully agreed, however check out invidious.io or freetube if you want to degoogle but if theres still anything your missing
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?
Nope
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.
I stopped using youtube completely back when Trump was elected. I was never a big user anyway, I prefer reading. Its not something I grew up with so I don’t miss it. I got a used Pixel for GrapheneOS shortly after that. I got a Proton account a few years ago, and stopped using google search back in 2008, when I started using Linux and duckduckgo was the default search in Firefox. I think I’m pretty degoogled now. Hope Graphene can find an OEM supplier, having this Pixel gives me some strong dissonance. Its just a temporary fix, it was cheap tho.
Ublock on Firefox = the same results
with a much higher pool of good content.Honestly, if all you’re seeing is click bait that’s a You issue
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
No
How is Nebula? It has some creators that I like, but does it have a good mobile app?
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.
Zionist, unfortunately.
Mozilla + UBlock means ad free YouTube.
I don’t have the app on any device because I don’t do ads. If you go ad free, then you will start to notice significant changes in you mental wellbeing inside of -10min of ad hits. I wish that was hyperbole, but it is not.
There is good content on YT, but it’s stuff you’ve already discovered. The algorithm and thumbnails are trash. And it’s rarely in the shorts section.
You can use ReVanced to add a block to the android app. It’s as as free as my desktop experience with Firefox+uBlockOrigin.
Revanced is the best. I don’t get why people keep recommending Peertube, Revanced is vastly superior and you can also use it to nerf other apps.
Plus, SponsorBlock takes care of baked-in ads, DeArrow gets rid of those thumbnails, and just blocking the “Home” feed with any number of other extensions and using only the subscriptions tab gets rid of all the algorithmic content once you also block suggestions.
OP, YouTube is shit but they still mostly let you de-shittify. Enjoy it while it lasts.
YouTube still isn’t ad-free like that. They devote SO much of the screen to advertisements for other YouTube videos.
I have an browser extension to remove those and haven’t seen ANY ads on YouTube in years.
I use a private invidious instance for the stuff I need to access Youtube for. And peertube for everything else
Been using FreeTube for a bit now w/ GraphineOS, and my Linux Desktop. Runs cookieless embed of YouTube videos and Invidious instances built in. Localized subscriptions and playlists, which can be imported in from Google Takeout; no recommendations page. Occasionally YT will block your IP, which is where a good VPN comes into play so you could switch on the fly, and for overall additional privacy hygiene.
I would love to drop YT all together, but some independent journalists I follow are all there who’s coverage is really on the pulse. It pays to be informed by good journalists these days, and many of them are unfortunately on YT.
