What frustrates me the most is that this is one place where mine and Google's interests actually align! Let me help train them to not show me crap I don't want to see... then I'll use their products (YouTube and Search) more and give them more opportunities to show me ads! (Well, theoretically -- I block as many ads as I can right now).
That was one of the big reasons I looked for an alternative to Google search. IIRC, you used to be able to exclude results from Google search. In order to do so, you HAD TO LOGIN TO GOOGLE (another huge win for Google!). Now I use Kagi -- primarily because they allow me to exclude sites from their search results.
The more feeds you subscribe to, the more unique your fingerprint.
They really don’t. Some YouTube videos (and channels) are way more profitable for Google than others, on a CPM basis. I think there are even some videos that are just plain money losers (long videos that aren’t packed with mid rolls).
Google wants to steer you towards the most profitable videos and away from the unprofitable ones. They don’t care about your interests. They’d rather trick you into watching videos you don’t like and that get you angry (but keep you engaged) than to watch videos you’re really interested in but are too long and niche and unprofitable.