As for recommendation, the algorithm works perfectly if you make the effort to "Like and subscribe™" to quality channels and videos. It's amazing how good YouTube can be if you curate the algorithm with this – and with dislikes if you have to.
I've gotten recommended videos by creators with <1k subs that I really enjoyed, and many with <10k subs.
I've gotten recommended videos with topics I hadn't really thought about but which I ended up enjoying.
Sure there's about 10% or so that I'm not interested in, but I just mark those as "don't recommend channel" and move on. And the times I just need to check out some stupid clickbait, I make sure to remove it from my history afterwards.