I followed the link of a video here on Lemmy just a few minutes ago and it opened in the browser.

Nothing shocking up to this point.

Then I get a prompt from the video saying "Ready to buy products advertised in the video? Log into the official app in order to."

Direct purchase through the YT app is a novelty for me.

Newpipe all the way.

I block content I’m not interested in and it goes away.

I agree with this idea, but unfortunately YT and other engagement social media sites don't want that to happen. For me, I'm almost never shown videos I hate, but when I say "not interested/don't show me this channel" it USUALLY works. Not at the time though. I've definitely gotten channels recommended to me that I already said I don't want to see.

This is especially true for my mom, who is frequently getting upset by the fact that YT keeps showing her Fox News and Asmongold clips in her recommendations. I think changing the VPN to Canada helped to reduce the Fox News recommendations, but the Asmongold clips can't be escaped.

Any iOS alternatives? The ad experience is not great.

Fair question, I don’t really watch that stuff. I’ve been watching channels like king k and Liam triforce etc. I also dabble in channels like Not Just Bikes. So nothing super political. I also follow a channel that dives into Math topics, etc.

taking a guess but I already saw some other comments on another thread mention this: The chart boys in any corps will see Engagement == Profit. Thus they will tune their recommendations solely for that. And if you aren't bothered about properly policing your video upload platform the end result is highly divisive content thats "not boring".

Divisive content makes people angry so they engage in comments.

i used to be on reddit. And I used to get into "debates" that devolved into a slap fight and make me angry about the people who intentionally or unintentionally riled me up with outrageous (real or my own perception) opinions.

While lemmy also has slap fights, I feel like the lack of an "algorithm" tuned for engagement prevents continuous fueling of the fire, metaphorically speaking.

It became downright personal for me. Its about accessibility.

My brain works a certain non typical way which is challenging to live with at best.

Sudden advertisements hits me like a physical punch in my face.

The ui focus on everything new rather then a nice subscription view with filters meant i who does not watch daily would frequently miss new uploads from the channels i do like.

I felt like i was in a toxic relationship being pushed to watch on their terms while openly hating that i protect myself from ad-sault by using blockers.

I realize i did not need things to be this way and am smart enough to build and alternative.

Now i have a yt-dlp script downloaded the latest uploads from chosen channels straight to jellyfin and also a selfhosted invidious with custom tweaks for everything i dont want to spend storage space on.

Basicly i take 100% of what i liked and never have to visit the website directly again.

They are waging war on invidious, it breaks on occasion. Yt-dlp though, stable as a rock.

Its nuts to me that we figured out their strategy like 10 years ago and people just chose to ignore that information and kept using all these platforms anyway.

I think Jacob Geller and wendigoon are on nebula and they don't make political content. I'm sure there are others

That’s so interesting re your mother. I wonder if her beliefs closely align to fox and asmongold (never heard of that one), but are different enough for her to not be interested in that content. Ie: ven diagram between the belief systems, except the differences are big enough for her to not to like fox content but for the algorithm the commonalities are good enough to keep suggesting the content.

NJB is the shit.

I will never, never visit Fake London.

The trending page of YT is like the r/all of Reddit. If I want to see some stuff I couldn't care less about, that's where I'll find it. I have no idea who actually uses that, but I've never found anything of value there.

Online monoculture died when the normies finally got online and brought real life cliques to the internet.

When was this?

Asking as someone who’s been on the Internet since 1989.

I recommend Tubular. Newpipe with Sponsorblock. Didn't realise how much of a game changer that would be until I tried it.

Just need to find a way to stop Eternity from opening Youtube links in the browser. Sure you can share it with the app but it would be a lot more convenient.

15-20 years or so ago. Whenever smartphones became the dominant communications tool, and pretty much everyone had access to the internet from their pocket square.

Been online since '93 myself at pretty much the dawn of the World Wide Web.

Any iOS alternatives? The ad experience is not great.

People use the youtube app?

Nebula has certainly improved but I still think they need to put more effort into getting new creators that aren't political or news. I just did a skim through their uploads lists for various topics and news and/or political (or political ish) content is still the most active. Topics like technology and gaming see far less uploads.