FreeTube and PipePipe largely solve this problem for me. I just subscribe to people I am interested in and watch their videos. If they link or recommend another creator I have a quick browse and subscribe there too, or not. When I get bored, I unsubscribe. Everything is chronological. It's like the good old days of mailing lists/usenet/blogs/RSS except with video.
The only downside is that it's still centralized behind the scenes so you still get the weird algorithm gimmickry inside the content like people superstitiously saying or not saying certain words in the first few minutes, nonsense like "nothing to add, just commenting for the algorithm", that weird tendency to dopily repeat the same sentences around what I guess would be an ad break if I ever saw ads etc. I try to mitigate this by sending money to specific creators, showing that an alternative income source to YouTube could be possible, but of course that's still funneled through Patreon which is another centralized for-profit service that has a vested interest in getting creators to provide membership tiers and value-adds that chip away at their motivation to put out meaningful content that enriches broader society.
I've come to think that centralization is a bigger problem than "the algorithm". I don't remember having these issues anywhere near as much when people shared their stuff independently. To be fair, though, back then most people were doing it as a hobby outside of their day job.
The only downside is that it's still centralized behind the scenes so you still get the weird algorithm gimmickry inside the content like people superstitiously saying or not saying certain words in the first few minutes, nonsense like "nothing to add, just commenting for the algorithm", that weird tendency to dopily repeat the same sentences around what I guess would be an ad break if I ever saw ads etc. I try to mitigate this by sending money to specific creators, showing that an alternative income source to YouTube could be possible, but of course that's still funneled through Patreon which is another centralized for-profit service that has a vested interest in getting creators to provide membership tiers and value-adds that chip away at their motivation to put out meaningful content that enriches broader society.
I've come to think that centralization is a bigger problem than "the algorithm". I don't remember having these issues anywhere near as much when people shared their stuff independently. To be fair, though, back then most people were doing it as a hobby outside of their day job.