YouTube
Google's video-sharing platform for user and creator uploaded videos, with a paid Premium tier.
Liked for in-depth educational and enthusiast content123, and for a feed that works well once curated through subscriptions and feedback.4567 The most common complaints are recommendations pushing Shorts and clickbait891011, along with a clunky interface and declining search.12131415
Why people recommend it
Curatable feed · 3
Commenters say subscriptions, likes, dislikes and 'not interested' keep the feed relevant.
“I use YouTube all the time and it's great.”
Show 1 more
“the subscriptions tab stays in its lane”
Learning content · 3
Valued for deep dives, recorded lectures and enthusiast-level material.
“YouTube, and AI chatbots totally enthrall me”
“one of the things I love about YouTube is when teachers record and share their lectures”
Show 1 more
“how YouTube can be a remarkably effective and valuable platform for the kind of enthusiast”
Streaming value · 3
Some prefer it to paid streaming services and to Spotify for discovery.
“They are not worth it compared to YouTube that's free and for me the best”
Show 1 more
“YouTube is a close second despite having awful UI/UX.”
Premium ad removal · 2
Some say paying for Premium to remove ads makes it useful.
“YouTube is useful - only with the subscription to get rid of all the ads.”
“I use YouTube all the time and it's great.”
Creator payouts · 1
One commenter notes creators get 60% of ad revenue, funding good content.
“Creators get 60% of youtube's ad revenue from youtube.”
Caveats and dissent
Recommendations and Shorts · 3
Feeds are criticized as clickbait-heavy and full of Shorts, even for Premium subscribers.
“Youtube is, for me, the worst streaming experience - by a significant margin.”
“But I pay for YY premium! So why do they still insist on putting shorts everywhere?”
Show 1 more
“The YouTube algorithm has made it largely useless to me recently.”
Interface and bugs · 3
Users report confusing UI, back-button bugs, buffering in the app and a large app size.
“Every time I think about YouTube's interface it becomes more obvious it's made by people (?) who's brains just don't work like mine...”
“they'll fix the back button bugs on YouTube”
Show 1 more
“I've had to disable the YouTube app and switch to mobile web because it would just buffer nonstop on everything”
Search quality · 3
Search is described as worse, sometimes failing to find videos even by exact title.
“Search is the reason I stopped watching youtube”
“Even searching on youtube has recently gotten worse.”
Show 1 more
“Yeah Youtube search is mediocre”
Ads · 3
Commenters complain about heavy and intrusive ads, especially on mobile.
“With the new wave of ads on mobile, the ones with the "next" button, I gave up.”
“The YouTube algorithm has made it largely useless to me recently.”
Show 1 more
“I pay for Ars, I pay for YouTube, I pay for discord nitro at the highest tier.”
AI content · 3
AI-generated slop and unwanted AI dubs reduce the value for some users.
“My wife and I pay for YouTube and the prevalence of AI Slop definitely reduces the value we get for our money.”
“I absolutely hate that YouTube is doing that”
Show 1 more
“how YouTube can be a remarkably effective and valuable platform for the kind of enthusiast”
Addictive design · 2
Some removed or avoid the app over engagement-driven, hooking UX.
“I removed the YT app from my phone because of all the addicting/simulating UX and hooking content.”
“I recommend taking a page out of the FSF's book and just straight up not using it, because it doesn't respect its users.”
Often compared with
3 moved from YouTube to InvidiousTikTok5 comments mention both
1 moved from YouTube to SmartTube
1 moved from YouTube to PipePipe
Who recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
- Show HN: YouTube search barely works, I made a search form with advanced filters 3 mentions
- HackerTube: YouTube built from videos recommended by HN 2 mentions
- Fox to Buy Roku Streaming Service in $22B Deal 2 mentions
- Using LLM for confidence scoring is a bad idea 1 mention
- MrBeast 'spends millions reverse engineering the algorithms on each platform' 1 mention
- Plunging test scores are a slow-moving catastrophe 1 mention
Data: youtube.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 35
“With the new wave of ads on mobile, the ones with the "next" button, I gave up.”
“I find that my youtube feed is nicely curated to my interests.”
“Every time I think about YouTube's interface it becomes more obvious it's made by people (?) who's brains just don't work like mine...”
“I use YouTube a lot”
“YouTube, and AI chatbots totally enthrall me”
“I absolutely hate that YouTube is doing that”
“You can already do this on youtube by not allowing history. And what a bliss that is!”
“I use Youtube for long-form video and only select videos”
“I recommend taking a page out of the FSF's book and just straight up not using it, because it doesn't respect its users.”
“I pay for Ars, I pay for YouTube, I pay for discord nitro at the highest tier.”
“Youtube is, for me, the worst streaming experience - by a significant margin.”
“I curate it to get good recommendations.”
“I use YouTube heavily with a browser plugin that hides recommendations”
“I use YouTube all the time and it's great.”
“the abomination that is YouTube”
“how YouTube can be a remarkably effective and valuable platform for the kind of enthusiast”
“one of the things I love about YouTube is when teachers record and share their lectures”
“Youtube is miles ahead of this.”
“I've had to disable the YouTube app and switch to mobile web because it would just buffer nonstop on everything”
“YouTube is useful - only with the subscription to get rid of all the ads.”
“Creators get 60% of youtube's ad revenue from youtube.”
“Even searching on youtube has recently gotten worse.”
“I use YouTube, but only watch stuff I SEARCH for or from people I have subscribed to.”
“YouTube is a close second despite having awful UI/UX.”
“But I pay for YY premium! So why do they still insist on putting shorts everywhere?”
“whatever the Youtube App (330MB) and Netflix (183MB) are wasting my phone's space on”
“I removed the YT app from my phone because of all the addicting/simulating UX and hooking content.”
“They are not worth it compared to YouTube that's free and for me the best”
“they'll fix the back button bugs on YouTube”
“Yeah Youtube search is mediocre”
“The whole Youtube experience has gotten so bad over the years.”
“Search is the reason I stopped watching youtube”
“The YouTube algorithm has made it largely useless to me recently.”
“the subscriptions tab stays in its lane”
“My wife and I pay for YouTube and the prevalence of AI Slop definitely reduces the value we get for our money.”