I have stopped using YouTube on my phone for quite some time now. Even my iPad and laptop, I use it very carefully. I do not like what it has become, especially the home page. Google’s aggressive recommendations and creator’s ability to game it have made it home to clickbaity and idiotic content.

Google wants to make YouTube addictive, and I want to fight back. Here’s the way that worked for me.

I either access the video directly (if I know what I want to watch) or browse my Subscriptions page (when I don’t know what to watch). The home page is useless without history turned on. And so are other recommendations. Trust me; you do not want them.

Well, Google has managed to ruin the subscriptions screen too.

As if the recommendations for sensational videos weren’t bad, Google found another way to spike engagement or our addiction to the app - shorts. I have been vocal about my dislike for this form of content.

What’s worse is that Google seems to be aggressively pushing it on creators, making it more profitable in some manner. Now my subscription page is full of short videos, with no way to filter them out.

The high-quality videos are getting lost in this drivel of mindless shorts, even from the creators I respect. I do not know how some of the most intelligent minds are ok with this. I have seen this play out to written words – the long-form essays are lost amidst the hot takes and rants on social timelines.

Google has done the same to the last sane space on the platform. I can now simply get rid of my usage of this platform altogether.

Congratulations, Google, and thank you!