YouTube Waning and Drowning
There only seems to be one - maybe two - Invidious instance that works (https://yewtu.be/ only sporadically works lately; https://inv.nadeko.net/ seems to mostly work). However, having curated some GNU/Linux-centric videos from YouTube (via Invidious) for a number of years, I just find it hard to ignore the fact that many active channels became far less active or entirely inactive. The quality of uploaded videos also decreased and many are just "#shorts" or some computer-generated (CG) junk with no real value, no worth.
Waning YouTube channels seem to be part of a broader trend, wherein social control media loses active users. Over the past year Mastodon/Fediverse is said to have lost about 50% of its (net) active users and the number of Mastodon/Fediverse servers has been steadily declining almost all year, Twitter has become a far-right platform whose value plummeted about 80% in 2 years (it's now worth even less than its total debt), Facebook has mass layoffs again, and LinkedIn is losing "engagement".
It's hard to comment on what goes on in TikTok without assessing it (from the inside), but from what we've read TikTok does not make any money, it's losing money, and TikTok too had mass layoffs recently, as did YouTube.
Perhaps it's unfair to 'single out' YouTube; it seems to be going downwards along with everything else, probably even TikTok (which faces more restrictions and bans). █
The number of active users in Mastodon has been HALVED over the past year. Now measured at 865k, compared to well over 1,700k a year earlier.