Whether intentional or not, or just progressive improvement on algorithms, youtube thrives by providing a need, and then providing it poorly so you keep your watch time going forever.

It depends. I'm a huge nerd and my YouTube browsing habits are relating to educational videos and long form essays. My news sources on YouTube are also less sensationalist.

On algorithm, I kinda minimise its bs by turning off my watch history. I bookmark my YouTube page to my watch later playlist, so I could chip away at my nearly twenty years of backlog of videos to watch.