YouTube

What hackers pick instead

• PeerTubeFree, decentralized video platform that lets people share videos without ads or big-company control. Common caveat: little content and no way to earn money.66recommend
• YouTube ShortsPeople recommend Shorts for quick explainers and short breaks, especially with recommendations off. Critics say it is addictive and cannot be fully turned off.21recommend
• Loops appOpen-source, federated short-form video app that avoids algorithmic feeds and commercial ownership. Critics say its content and interface look too much like TikTok and it may stay small.21recommend
• TwitchFree live video where you can watch and chat with streamers in real time. Critics say it leans heavily on ads and engagement-driven decisions.12recommend
• RumbleRecommended as a free video site for dissenting voices and OBS streaming. Critics cite a right-wing slant and neo-Nazi content.8recommend

Every quote

The 40 most detailed of 2561 comments. Each links to the original.

1. I see that youtube is on the blanket banned list - which is a bit surprising given they are probably one of the more responsible platforms and it also contains lots of educational stuff.

   Mixed · Jun 2026 · in “Under-16s to be banned from social media, Starmer announces”

2. my feed is 80%+ decent stuff - science channels, AOPA safety videos - stuff like that. But my other account has absolutely terrible suggestions on the algorithm

   Mixed · Dec 2025 · in “A new research shows that 21-33% of YouTube's feed may consist of AI slop”

3. Youtube is actually my favorite algo because barring unexpected pipelines like fitness to red pills my home feed is 90% things I consider worth watching

   Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Facebook is absolutely cooked”

4. YouTube captures the full set of extremes and everything in between, so I don't think it's fair to label the entire thing a cesspit of stupidity

   Mixed · Sep 2026 · in “Doomscrolling ourselves to death”

5. YT is currently a most critical piece of the WWW: the informational content and intellectual participation on YT competes with its complement.

   Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “EU will seek to limit children's access to social media”

6. I just want someone who's good at explaining a math concept or who has managed to get the footage I want to see about how something is done.

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Google AI Overviews cite YouTube more than any medical site for health queries”

7. YouTube provides a lot of value to a lot of people. I've learned a lot of math, physics, history, DIY from it. But it's addictive (to some)

   Mixed · Mar 2026 · in “Meta and YouTube Found Negligent in Landmark Social Media Addiction Case”

8. Product choices have made it far more of a pointless timesuck and consumer hostile but it still remains the place where I can find a video

   Mixed · Jul 2026 · in “Why do people hate the tech industry? (2023)”

9. I've learned incredible amounts of things with YouTube - I curate it like a madman, but overall I'm still not sure it's a good thing.

   Mixed · Jun 2026 · in “Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds”

10. there are so many great video and shorts that explains algorithms, DB internals, computer security, cryptography, etc. on youtube

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Ask HN: Any tips for a college freshman enrolled in computer science?”

11. Nowadays, you can probably find it on YT, and that's great IMHO. I my musical horizon would be so much more limited without it.

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Dear Time Lords: Freeze Computers in 1993”

12. I derive incredible value from YouTube. It wasn't always great, but it is recently full of extremely good educational content

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Vienam Bans Unskippable Ads, Requires Skip Button to Appear After 5 Seconds”

13. Thankfully on Youtube I can completely disable recommendations on the site and I use it purely as a source of information

    Mixed · Feb 2026 · in “Attention Media ≠ Social Networks”

14. the massive amount of (good) content present in YouTube (and YT music) is the reason I'm willing to pay the premium price

    Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “Stop complaining about enshittification. Use the alternatives”

15. Youtube is a modern Library of Alexandria. It archives a significant amount of human knowledge and culture in video form

    Mixed · Jun 2026 · in “The UK's New Under-16 Social Media Ban Will Cause More Harm Than It Prevents”

16. "the algorithm" (of Twitter/X, FB, Instagram, YouTube, Google, everyone) has propagandising biases that damage society

    Mixed · Jul 2026 · in “AI 2040 and the Cult of Intelligence”

17. YouTube contains lessons from the most prestigious universities; divulgational material from "all" countries and times

    Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “Leak: EU Commission to pitch social media restrictions for under-15s”

18. If it is obviously some exaggerated image nothing like what is in the video then i ask youtube to not recommend them.

    Mixed · Aug 2026 · in “AI-Generated Images Discourage Me from Reading Your Blog”

19. As a knowledge base for DIY learning how to repair random stuff around the house, there is no alternative to Youtube.

    Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “Making the Internet Boring”

20. the YT recommendations system works very well, only suggesting things similar to what I've already watched and liked

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “I Left YouTube”

21. YouTube is simply goated - no other platform comes to the versatility you can consume in terms of long-form content.

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “YouTube now world's largest media company, topping Disney”

22. What it does is make it so if you click a short from somewhere the short plays, but then if you try to swipe to the next one it hits you with the "You reached your short limit"

    Criticizes · Apr 2026 · in “YouTube now lets you turn off Shorts”

23. This pattern does not represent how I use the product. I want to know what's newest and the time ordered list being deprioritized in the UI and fractured makes that worse.

    Criticizes · Apr 2026 · in “Show HN: YouTube search barely works, I made a search form with advanced filters”

24. it won't show me videos unless I start watching things first, unless I go to Shorts, where I am presented with an infinite scroll of what appears to be deeply unsettling

    Criticizes · Nov 2025 · in “Meta buried 'causal' evidence of social media harm, US court filings allege”

25. I absolutely hate that YouTube is doing that; I'm Dutch/English so obviously fluent in both languages yet YouTube randomly decides to give me this horrific AI dub

    Criticizes · Sep 2026 · in “Meta takes down a critical video about meta AI Glasses after filming at Meta”

26. Twitter YouTube and other various individually engagement-tuned sources are recruiting a new audience and helping fragment the consensus on objective reality.

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “The architecture of the internet creates risks for democracy”

27. Unfortunately, I now have to scroll through the "most relevant" section, then through shorts, and only then do I reach the videos in the chronological order.

    Criticizes · Sep 2026 · in “Making the Internet Boring”

28. I've drastically cut my use of YouTube (even though there are creators I like and wish to support) because I am so tired of wading through all the junk.

    Criticizes · May 2026 · in “YouTube to automatically label AI-generated videos”

29. You still get the autogenerated dubs by default, the comments moved to end of the earth, and many other stuff (shorts etc.) people get pissed about.

    Criticizes · Nov 2025 · in “Someone at YouTube Needs Glasses: The Prophecy Has Been Fulfilled”

30. they mix everything in the same bucket. Kids watching educational content on the platform is obviously fine, but watching shorts for 3 hours isn't.

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “Under-16s to be banned from social media, Starmer announces”

31. Tried every conceivable player, Spotify, YouTube Music, YouTube, Apple Music (local files), Soundcloud and more, all of them leading to the same thing

    Mixed · Jul 2026 · in “CarPlay Is Additive”

32. my very old YouTube account (which still has a subscription to "YouTube Red" that costs half of what a new subscription to YouTube Premium costs)

    Mixed · Jul 2026 · in “Your 'App' Could Have Been a Webpage (so I fixed it for you)”

33. YouTube (and other content creation platforms in general) are just a better deal for many people than traditional forms of entertainment.

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “YouTube now world's largest media company, topping Disney”

34. it's reasonable to call YouTube (and instagram, which also gets the same treatment) two of the all time best corporate acquisitions

    Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “Google Search is now less than half of Alphabet’s revenue”

35. I also think that behaviour kind of came from youtube. For videos it makes a tiny bit more sense to ignore what the person wanted.

    Mixed · May 2026 · in “Google has a secret reference desk”

36. yes YT is full of bullshit but if you truly want in depth analysis coverage, you probably know how to filter out the bad channels

    Mixed · Jun 2026 · in “Journalism is rearranging the deckchairs. It needs to reinvent itself”

37. Google having a confusing UI, but fundamentally, this feature's job is to summarize and relay the content of your video comments

    Mixed · Jul 2026 · in “Leaking YouTube Creators Private Videos”

38. youtube is still an incredibly massive engineering achievement as a platform, has been extremely reliable all things considered

    Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Leaking YouTube Creators Private Videos”

39. Youtube is the only platform that has the potential to be actually positive for your life, which makes it hard to get rid of.

    Mixed · Aug 2026 · in “Scientific study reveals TikTok videos deactivate key cognitive brain regions”

40. if someone doesn't put 2+2 together and starts blaming their ISP for poor load issues because their Youtube "keeps buffering"

    Mixed · Nov 2025 · in “Yt-dlp: External JavaScript runtime now required for full YouTube support”