I use Invidious for browsing the site, and watch the actual videos via a script that deobfuscates and gets the actual stream URL and then passes that to VLC.
As another data point, YouTube a decade ago would've been perfectly fine on that hardware too. The culprit is web bloat in general, and more specifically the monstrosities of abstraction that have become common in JS.
Even for those who don't believe at all in "climate crisis", there is something to be said for the loss of craftsmanship and quality over time that's caused this mess, so I think it's something everyone across the whole political spectrum can agree with.
As another data point, YouTube a decade ago would've been perfectly fine on that hardware too. The culprit is web bloat in general, and more specifically the monstrosities of abstraction that have become common in JS.
Even for those who don't believe at all in "climate crisis", there is something to be said for the loss of craftsmanship and quality over time that's caused this mess, so I think it's something everyone across the whole political spectrum can agree with.