I watch a few, but the first worthy one that comes to mind is TBSkyen.

I've got a few creators I subscribe to and only ever look at my subscriptions and never at the recommendations. My YouTube experience has been pretty consistent over the years. Still greatly enjoy it, subscribing to creators once or twice a year.

Hey DoisBigo,

Since you're into finance videos, here are some creators I like:

Ben Felix,
Patrick Boyle,
The Plain Bagel.

Enjoy!

Anton Petrov has a great channel if you are into science and space. He posts a video every day explaining new findings in a really approachable way.

Erin Parsons Makeup is my newest rabbit hole. A really neat look at makeup through history!

I watch LBRY (I use it directly and bypass odysee btw)

For youtube I proxy it through piped

I'm still enjoying the engineering and maker channels, along with a few other educational channels.

Fall of Civilizations

I haven't seen this mentioned yet, but it's incomparably good (if stories about past civilizations is your thing).

Stefan Milo - Been really enjoying his videos "digging" into archaeology and pre-history.

I do yes as I also have a channel that I do videos for (my only income as I fund my own website without ads or 3rd party trackers). I do make my videos' ads skippable though. And yes my own browser blocks ads.

But the pleasantness, or lack thereof, comes down to a site's rules and moderation. The vast majority of people don't want to be aggravated, and they also don't really want to pay to use a website.

But scammers and clickbait are everywhere. I think a lot depends on whether they can game the algorithm to force their way into your home feed or not. Many news media sites also use clickbait, and the same goes for politicians wanting to get attention through fear and anger. But I agree very often clickbait crosses the line - it is really irritating when you see a thumbnail of something, and that image literally appears nowhere inside the content.

I mostly follow technology channels though.

Second Thought, First Thought, Our Changing Climate, Polymatter, Kurzgesagt, The Grayzone, Geopolitical Economy Report, Breakthrough News, Democracy Now.