I think that the monetization on youtubes (not individual creators) side is slowly destroying youtube.
Just a few years ago, you could search for anything, even current-political, and find a bunch of videos from a bunch of people, from "best trump insults" to "why xyz is bad?" .... but now, all the top search results about anything remotely current (be it politics, covid, russia/ukraine, crime, heatwaves,...), all you get is mainstream media (cnn, msnbc,....). If I wanted to watch CNN, I'd watch CNN, not youtube.
Add to this all the blatant demonetization of anything remotely non-politically-correct, discussing anything current, or even using a bad word.
For me, youtube has become in 90% just one more "cable tv" channel... mainstream media, and a few large media houses pushing their shitty videos. There are only a few channels left that I actually enjoy, and even those are producing less and less content every year.
> but now, all the top search results about anything remotely current (be it politics, covid, russia/ukraine, crime, heatwaves,...), all you get is mainstream media (cnn, msnbc,....). If I wanted to watch CNN, I'd watch CNN, not youtube.
I think this has nothing to do with monetization per se, it was an explicit decision taken by YT and hard-coded into the search and recommendations algorithms in light of the craze about "fake news".
It's very funny to notice when looking at videos from new media creators - even though I am subscribed, Like most videos I watch, watch them till the end etc, I will almost always get "redirected" to a mainstream news video if Auto-play is on, at least after 2-3 videos.
Just a few years ago, you could search for anything, even current-political, and find a bunch of videos from a bunch of people, from "best trump insults" to "why xyz is bad?" .... but now, all the top search results about anything remotely current (be it politics, covid, russia/ukraine, crime, heatwaves,...), all you get is mainstream media (cnn, msnbc,....). If I wanted to watch CNN, I'd watch CNN, not youtube.
Add to this all the blatant demonetization of anything remotely non-politically-correct, discussing anything current, or even using a bad word.
For me, youtube has become in 90% just one more "cable tv" channel... mainstream media, and a few large media houses pushing their shitty videos. There are only a few channels left that I actually enjoy, and even those are producing less and less content every year.