How old are you and when was the last time you used Youtube before this realization?

Did you just crawl out of a cave?

You lost an entire decade somehow

where the hell have you been?

You're just watching the wrong shit. Turn off history, clear it, and your home page will be blank, no algorithm. Find people doing things you actually think are worth following and only look at your Subscribed list or, better yet, add the channel RSS feed to your preferred reader and you won't even have to go look for new stuff, you'll just know it's there. They will likely have a Patreon if you feel like supporting them.

Though I'm quite sure you already know all this, your post reads just like the feigned disgust in the videos you're talking about. That shit don't work on Lemmy.

I remember when youtube was for sharing videos, like imgur now, it was somewhere you could post videos to put on forums. I still have lots of old home videos on there.

However, that was ages ago.

Capitalism

Since the ads have been suppressed with anti-pop-ups and blockers. The creators are always salespeople, they make videos of shit but at the same time they suggest you buy certain products, that's how advertising is done these days.