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1w ago

What YouTube channel to you has degraded in time?

For me it's Skallagrim. This is a channel of a guy who specializes in ancient armory and weaponry, he also reviews swords and stuff that's sold online and tests them. Pretty cool.

But then I started to not like him for some reason and it took me a while to put my finger on it. Until I saw the video where he tried criticizing weapons in video games. Then that was where I found problems with him as a channel.

His personality comes off very pretentious and one of those pseudointellectuals you know, who try sounding smarter than they really are. He even has the voice tone to back that with.

So yeah I really once loved his channel. Though whenever he goes on tirades about things that are meant for fantasy purposes which aren't supposed to make sense when translated to reality, as well as try to poke at fictitious things that borrow from ancient history, I feel he misses the plot of his entire channel and why people like me once subscribed to it.

We didn't subscribe to your channel for your stupid takes on - anything. We subscribed because you seem to know your melee weapons and historical backgrounds of said weaponry. Stick to those.

377 comments

Mark Rober
He's been going harder and harder into the Mr Beast format, and it's off-putting. I'm still subscribed for now, but I almost never watch his videos unless the topic seems interesting.
- Yeah, his more recent videos seem to be more about the spectacle, rather than the education or interesting subject matter.
- He’s just part of a huge machine now. And he looks tired as hell sometimes.
- He creeps me out. Some uncanny valley thing, like maybe plastic surgery?
  
  He's definitely been working out a lot, potentially juicing.
- I dislike Mark Rober.
  Here is Mark Rober shilling for Anduril, an AI weapon company.
  
  anduril is one of THIELs creation too, for people not aware.
- I gave up watching Rober when he proclaimed he loves his Tesla and will buy another one. This is was said well after Musk went full Nazi dirtbag. Rober has enough money to buy another electric, he doesn't have to support that man.
- The one Video I've seen of him was a sponsored look at an Anduril combat drone. Never bothered looking at anything else he did after.
  
  Yeah that was uh
- Since he started that subscription box company his focus shifted from telling a cool story through a creation or robot to creating a video that can sell the most boxes for him
- That hotel demolition video could have been really cool
  Instead it was just... Boring and weirdly edited
- If he stopped SHOUTING ALL THE FUCKING TIME, his content would be just about tolerable.
- I feel exactly the same. I'll still watch his glitter bomb videos, or if he makes another squirrel obstacle course, but his stuff has become very child oriented recently.
- Are there any good science/education channels left? Veritaism, smarter every day, Kurzgesagt all seem to have fallen off. Didn't like Johnny Harris from the start.
  3b1b, perhaps?
  
  Depends on what exactly you're looking for. Technology Connections, Steve Mould, ElectroBOOM, Practical Engineering, Hank Green's various enterprises, Cody's Lab, and the various "mad scientist" types like StyroPyro, NileRed, and the various people William Osman hangs out with.
  
  so, just scrolling through my subscriptions. this isn't a list of just science channels, lots of maker/diy stuff in here, but sometimes there's videos from those channels that overlap with the topics the more educational-type channels might have
  technology connections Chris Boden Louis rossman Steve mould good work Mike Boyd this old Tony Matthias wandel bigclivedotcom fortnine Marius hornberger essential craftsman everyday home repairs project farm mujin pask makes superfastmatt Marcin plaza notanengineer inheritance machining John heisz ibuildit Michael Reeves blondihacks Laura kamph UnderDunn
  also shout-out to Hunter Direction for just making amazingly beautiful videos lately, the algorithm delivered him to me recently and holy shit does his newer stuff just tickle me in exactly the right spot
  
  A great channel that ive been really enjoying is alpha phoenix. His old videos inside his crystal growing lab are super cool. I'd recommend air tight vs vaccumn tight that was cool
  
  yea i follow some science channel, mostly around biology, paleontogy, not huge influencers. im not "fluent" in physics content so i barely follow those.
  
  All of those are still pretty good, honestly.
- oh yea i saw the thumbnails, it seems to eerily like mr beast, i dont follow him. but his thumbnails are starting to resembling the "reaction channel" influencers thumbnails.
- I cancelled him when he faked the porch pirate videos years ago.

I no longer get excited about a new Veritasium video.
I also don't get excited when the title and thumbnail change 5 times in a week.
- He got bought by a private equity firm, don‘t be surprised
- I have a browser extension that blocks thumbnails on YouTube because I got tired of seeing people's creepy facial expressions.
  
  Try DeArrow, it will replace the thumbnail with a random snapshot and title is crowdsourced.
- I don't really like Veritasium (anymore).
  Here is an advert by Veritasium for Google's car's (Waymo). It's a terrible video. It uncritically shills. It contains garbage "research." Here is a longer breakdown.
- Youtube has a feature to ABC test different thumbnails to test which one will be the most popular. You might see one or all of them depending on whether you click right away. Eventually the channel will choose the most successful one.
- Why? I still love their stuff. The thumbnail shit is annoying though, he's said in the past they do it to boost engagement or something.
  
  A lot of the videos aren't even made by him anymore.
  
  New thumbnails mean people are more likely to click thinking it's a new video
- Kurzgesagt is pretty bad for that.
- I enjoyed their recent video on power law distributions and why they dramatically change how you should operate in those domains.
  They also did some good content a short while ago explaining why Monsanto and Dupont are problematic.
  That said you are right about the thumbnails since when I looked at the channel to double check that it was veritasium I was thinking of the title and thumbnail are completely different for all of them.
  
  That PFA video was wild. That stuff messed me up good.
  
  Their most recent video on Dirac was also super interesting to me.
- I stopped watching veritasium years ago after watching a couple videos that were basically an ad for whatever company and him being smug.
- Same for me. There's still the occasional really good video, but there's too many that are basically ads for some big tech thing

MKBHD, Linus, Most of the tech reviewing kids who got money and then hired an entire staff and in lots of cases also bought up really good solo YouTubers.
Motherfcking Casey Neistat. He was never an amazing person, his exploitation of his wife’s ass in thumbnails and being comfortable with click bait titles always felt off. But he’s a masterful propagandist and videographer until I saw him waving Israeli flags at pro Palestine protests during a filmed documentary.
- Linus was never solo, literally staff day 1. As his staff slowly leave they make some cool new channels though.
- All of the Neistats. I got tricked into thinking they had something to say and/or teach. Nope, just a few guys up their own ass.
- I think Veritasium is doing it right. They have new people presenting in videos, but Derek is always there tying everything together.
  
  They were sold to private equity and are slowly transitioning it away from Derek. That way it can be a brand not directly tied to him and his face

It's been a while, but AvE. Dude used to be some chill guy who would take apart tools or do some deep dive into a manufacturing process. But then the covid nation attacked and all of a sudden the guy is sprinkling an opinion in here and there that made me say, eh, and then the Canadian trucker thing happened and dude was all in on that shit. AvE was the first thing I ever donated money to on patreon and the first one I yanked my monthly from because the content had changed to something it once wasn't.
- I still think about the guy sometimes. It's perplexing how someone so smart turned out to be so dumb.
  
  as somebody somewhat in circles with people like him up here in Canada, there's a lot of people out there just like him. smart about how things work, but oh so dumb about how other things work.
- Yeah. I liked him a lot and watched him for a while but the creep alarm started beeping and red flags started going up. His takes on disasters were pretty good too. Shame he got weird.
- Stopped watching around COVID but before that he was a great teacher about how home objects were created. It really made me understand how everyday objects are made and why they're made a certain way. There's a niche there of an experienced manufacturing engineer to teach the masses
- Yup, dropped him when he came out in support of the convoy and then got annoyed when people told him to stfu.
  Sadly he's gained back and surpassed his subscriber numbers since the big drop around that time.
  
  covid seemed to have broke many channels owners mind, all the lockdown made them delusional and paranoid, hence why they all fall into the maga manosphere. the channel i was following had the same path, lockdown made them question vaccine/mask mandate, then when the incidents happened they went full maga.
- Big Clive might fill that gap for you. He does teardowns of dodgey electronics, and remains extremely down to earth, making good commentary about cost effectiveness and energy efficiency. For a while recently he was on a kick of trying to reverse engineer every single LED light bulb design and show how to modify them to run the LEDs less hard making them last much longer and run more efficiently (with reduced light output of course)
  He also uploaded a video without warning describing his experience caring for his mother as she passed from Alzheimers. That video with his down to earth way of describing things really helped me to better understand dementia not long before I had family members start declining from dementia
  
  Oh I love me some big Clive
- Very much agree, liked his old content a lot, don't care to hear about his politics or opinion outside of tools.
- If you want chill tool (repair) videos check out Dean Doherty. It's that plus Irish accent.
- Between the clownvoy support and his inability to learn how to use his CNC machine properly...yeah. Dude sucks.

I don't know if they degraded over time, but I unsubscribed from SmarterEveryDay because 1.) he kept trying to slip religious BS into videos and then I couldn't unsee his whole generic youth pastor schtick, 2.) he kept posting weird Physics Girl health update stuff. It just lost me. Not for me. I feel like the glory days of vsauce are also well behind us.
- Yeah I have the same impression. In one of his last videos, the one about Pompeii he advised against kids watching because a cartoonish dick showed on a wall. I'd agree, kids shouldn't watch, not because the dick, but his sickening puritism.
  
  So it is because of the dick... narrating\hosting.
  
  I wasn't an avid watcher but did enjoy his content until the Pompeii video. I get that in his mind he was giving context, but when he sat there reading directly from the bible I felt pretty gross. How people juxtapose heavy religious belief with scientific method astounds me.
  
  He was very butthurt about Roman brothels and acted like Christianity ended them yep.
  
  It wasn't the dick that was the problem. It was the menu of sexual positions that you could pay for in the brothel. He went a bit into the people who worked there, slaves.
  So it wasn't the dicks, but the idea that pictures were a menu so foreigners who didn't speak the language could order sex acts from slaves.
- Agree with point 1.
  His holier-than-thou attitude is exhausting. Stop trying to spread your fantasy friends around, we don't want them.
- The one that got me was trying to make a grill scrubber made entirely in the US, failing to source all the parts domestically, being somewhat xenophobic in the process, and then having the audacity of selling the thing for $80 (or more) when the exact product exists already for half the price. At some point the whole point of the video changed from "rebuilding manufacturing in America" to "China bad". I assume the attempt was in defense of the Trump tariffs, but the takeaway is the US is not in a position to manufacture things on a small scale, and throwing tariffs on it won't change and people will just have to pay more to import items since they can't be made locally.
  
  Especially funny since grill scrubbers in Latin America is half an onion sliced in half and does the job
  
  The thing that killed me about the grill scrubber was them bringing up Amazon ripping off products that are listed on its site (valid) but like you said the product they came up with is a clone of many others already on the market. The way he presented it is going to give people the impression that the preexisting ones are the imposters. You just know there are going to be fans review bombing competitors who predate his brush.
  He went through something before trying to capitalize on privacy. Ended up trying to sell someone else's reskinned VPN. Seems like he isn't above exploiting the trust of his viewers.
  I'll always appreciate the videos he did on the eclipse though. Got me convinced to go see the 2017 eclipse and it was fucking amazing.
  
  I agree with his premise that the knowledge and ability to manufacture stuff needs to be maintained. Not from a xenophobic/sinophobic position, but for practical reasons. If it's forgotten then no one can compete to make a cheaper or improved/different product. There's also an issue of if a war breaks out and supply lines are stopped (whether that's war with China or someone else who can attack supply lines). It's best if everyone in the world has access to manufacturing so people can have access to different jobs they may be better at or having the capability to create things that they couldn't otherwise.
  Now, there is an argument that a reliance on international trade prevents war. That is something to consider. China and the US are reluctant to go to war because they'd both be crippled by it even without considering combat. I don't think this is great justification though, but it is something to think about.
- My only problem with vsauce is that they post only once every 2 years now. But when a new video drops I still like it a lot.

The only one that I unsubbed to pretty fast was the 8bit guy. I generally enjoyed his videos and then in one of them, he had a fairly rare IBM PC and for some reason, he sticks a screwdriver into the power supply and blows a component.
But what really turned me off was when footage of him turned up on Reddit, taken by himself, of shopping in a place like Costco with his assault rifle on his back. I think he was taking pleasure in scaring some of the customers too.
(I think I've remembered that correctly)
Anyway, never went back to his channel after that.
EDIT: I found this Reddit page where someone asked what he did. Didn't realise that was 5 years ago now!
- What the fuck
  Smashing that unsubscribe button now. Like, fucking ew dude, don't fucking open carry at Costco you numpty fuck. Ugh...
  
  You make a good point. I should really unsubscribe from all US content.
- I remember the backlash he got from that with the IBM PC prototype. He didn't handle the reception well if I recall, having made one big or two 'woe is me' videos.
  There's something about that guy's demeanor that I never liked, like he fits the quirky, socially inept, wimpy kind of a nerd. It's astounding he even has a wife at all, much less one he fucked to have a kid with.
  He never shuts up about his crappy games too.
- Jesus. I always thought that guy was a shoddy self-centered Texan dweeb who always did totally half-assed projects, but I had no idea the extent of his shittiness as a person. People who treat weapons like toys are the last people who should have them.
- I used to love that channel. Such a shame.
- I still cringe about the moment he used a Dremel on that old prototype because he couldn't be bothered to get the correct screwdriver
- That video was the exact one that made me stop watching him too. Hadn't heard about the rifle thing, what the fuck
- Oh, I always sensed something was off there. Oof.
- Yup, that's the video that made me instantly done with him. I have Adrian and his Digital Basement to get my vintage computer content and unlike David, Adrian actually knows what he's doing and doesn't wreck his computers.
- What a fuckwit.
  Just unsubscribed as well.

Binging with Babish - used to be a fantastic set of recipes and takes on cooking that I really enjoyed trying to make, then got into the serious money and jumped the shark, both in "I bought my brother a Tesla/fulfilled a fan dream" and "this week we're using this dehydrator" ways (that meant I just wasn't going to be able to even imagine using the techniques and knowledge on show).
- It was the migration from cooking demonstrations to celebrity presence content (Babsih tries every X, Babish ranks every Y).
  Cooking demos keep the focus on the food; techniques, presentation, and results. Plus having an entertaining and charismatic host.
  Now those videos lean on the now-recognizable host being entertaining and charismatic, and doing… whatever. And it kind of makes sense in a marketplace-y sort of way. I can watch anybody cook, but Babish has the corner on Babish content, so why not lean into that? Also I’m sure the guy gets tired of making the same content over and over again, so he’s trying to find something interesting that catches on.
  I see Nat from Nats What I Reckon doing the same thing. And good on them for trying new stuff.
  
  Babish did recently do a bit of a "Yeah, even we're bored with this now" video and has gone back to his roots a bit.
- Ohhh same. I use to love his stuff then realized I hadn't watched for awhile. I went to the channel, saw the videos and remembered why I stopped lol
- Alton Brown is making a comeback to YouTube though, there’s someone who hasn’t changed since ever 😁
  
  Yeah but Alton Brown hates fat people. As a fat person I can't make myself watch him.
- I loved his channel when it was simpler and was just about trying to recreate recipes. Granted, he was going to run out of movie/tv ideas eventually. 💀💀
  I stopped watching once most of the videos became “watch me rate and eat every Mac and cheese.” At least the episodes marked “Anime with Alvin” still featured cooking.

Linus Tech Tips. It used to be good informative content. After they moved from the house in particular it started to really ramp up the clickbait. It just didn't feel like it was still about technology. It felt like it was about whatever gags they could throw into technology related videos.
The all the controversies happened after I had already unsubbed. Yeah, I don't know how people still engage with that channel.
- Tbh, they always had the gags in their videos. I think the do make some really informative and interesting content. Especially their tours of factories or other industrial equipment.
  Where they have irked me is with their reaction style videos or their 'top things to buy for whatever holiday'. Whilst they can be entertaining, it is low effort content that often isn't that great. I wish they didn't do them and did more reviews rather than just doing unbox+ on short circuit
  
  They had gags before, but they were part of the video. Now it seems like they do videos to have the gags. (Well, I don't know about now, but many years ago.) It went from informative videos only into a content mill that sometimes creates informative content. Gamers Nexus is much better if you just want the information.
- Also the anti-union bullshit Linus tend to puke out sometimes.
  
  This is not true. What he said is that he would consider it a personal failure if his employees felt the need to unionise, but he would support them in doing so. There is nothing "anti-union" about that sentiment.
  Unless of course he also said something else that I don't know about, but then I would love a source.
  
  Don't forget "ad blockers are piracy" and the one of a kind water cooler he sold.
- Yeah, the moment they started treating as a business it started going downhill
- i heard the incident with the employees, sleeping around or something. and he never seem genuine after that, plus he became more involved somehow with the production than before.
- These conversations always feel weird to me because i just never liked the guy. His "oh look i dropped expensive hardware" schtick was never funny to me, and him trying to push expensive hardware to people who can't really afford it was kinda gross. He never seemed to be knowledgeable enough for his massive ego, so i never cared for it. The other day i watched a video of someone else who was in his studio, and holy shit, it all makes sense. He has so many employees, a big ass studio, podcast studio, you name it. All to make some shitty videos?

I find most channels will degrade once the creator makes Youtube their full-time job. Afterwards, it's all about selling products, donations, sponsors, and memberships.
Survival Lilly and SirSic and two channels that come to mind.
- On the flip side a channel I recommend is "low buck garage". Within the last year or so (I don't remember, time flies) he mentioned being able to do YouTube full time and now we get longer videos more often. No ads, or shilling yet and he doesn't seem like that type as the channel name implies, he tries to fix stuff for cheap. Extremely smart dude who thinks outside the box in every video. All his videos are great and I always learn something new from them.
  
  Auto repair isn't my thing but it's good to know there are still quality channels out there. Thanks.
  
  He did or used to have a Don't Tread On Me flag, but his dad and then himself are such hoarders it's hard to know if he even remembers it's up there. I've never heard a political take from him ever, nor does he give off that vibe so I watch him still.
- Survival Lilly also seemed to have a switch a long time ago where she sexualized the channel, leaning heavily on being scantily clad to attract attention. Then the APO-1 knife came into play, sponsorships, etc..
  
  I looked at her channel. Judging from the thumbnails it seems to be a lot of politics and "the sky is falling" content. She used to be about bushcraft.
- science channels remain consistent though, although i suspect most of them do it as a part time thing and its relavent to thier fields.

MKBHD. He used to be, IMO, the best tech channel out there. The reviews were honest, well produced, and held companies' feet to the fire. The old MKBHD poked fun at the companies' shortcomings (I specifically remember him telling iPhone users to add a widget - then going "oh, wait..."). The new MKBHD interviews Tim Cook and doesn't properly question any of the BS he speaks.
- He's really good at trying to mow down kids in suburbs, though
- I don't really agree with this take.
  He still seems fair and mostly unbiased.
- Even if he indeed was more critical in the past, he was never very knowledgeable about the actual technical side of the products he reviewed.

Not sure if this counts, but CGP Grey. The frequency of the videos was always a joke, but the most recent video is a 3 month old paywalled vid of an early preview for a video still unreleased publicly. I still enjoy the videos when they're released, so it's not the quality, but the channel is clearly on autopilot. I hope everything's ok with him and maybe he's just using YouTube as passive income now that he hit it big?
- cgp grey has some quite bad takes that go way back. e.g. his take on self driving cars, on British monarchy, etc.
  
  God that "solution to traffic is to have robot cars" video is so dumb.
  
  I'm not sure of the specifics you're referring to, but seemed with most of his content, he was pretty clear with the data that formed his opinions, and was pretty honest when he was either wrong or changed his mind on something, which I respect.
  
  lol I forgot about that one. that was an eye opener to his engineering knowledge.
  one of those "when somebody speaks about something in your field" type situations
- Just checked ... and the videos that are paywalled on youtube aren't even on patreon :(
- The thing that kinda bothered me is that he made it so only people who give him money can comment on videos. Or at least he said he would move forward it and a decent chunk of his comments said "this is a bad idea, it will make an echo chamber or limit you to topics they wanna pay for."
  I miss the podcasts.
- I can't believe I listened to the entirety of Hello Internet only to not remember CPG even existed.
- Still waiting on episode one of that American Indians series…
  
  I'd really be down for it but I don't think we'll ever get it.
- Eh, you can have good content or frequent content
- I am ok with upload frequency dropping instead of upload quality, plus doesn't he do other things like a few podcasts now?
  
  I don't think he does any podcasts anymore. He stepped away from Cortex about 6 months ago, and Hello Internet has been gone for years now. Agreed with maintaining upload quality and sacrificing frequency, which had been the status quo for years, but i'm afraid the channel is more abandoned now.

This is VERY recent but NetworkChuck. He's such a great speaker and his videos were good intros into tech (Linux, networking, etc.) but with practical applicability. I liked that he skewed family-friendly and family positive, and some of the solutions he presented were from his perspective as a father. He was never shy about him being religious and being religiously involved. Imo 100% wholesome.
This year, several weeks of his videos were paid sponsor content for very corporate Cisco BS. Then, he comes back from that and it's AI stuff that's kind of a strech for a typical home user.... Then "I'm going to end my videos in a prayer". I unsubscribed right there.
- I mean ... if he's using Cisco gear, he'd better be praying.
  https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/cisco-botches-fix-for-rv320-rv325-routers-just-blocks-curl-user-agent/
  Cisco's mitigation consisted of making the router firmware blacklist the user agent name for the 'curl' command-line tool ...
- Religious plus over-produced quality always gives me the ick. Like there’s something hidden and they’re hiding it behind an overly smooth and suave exterior.
- There was always something slightly off about him. Like he always felt evangelicalish, but the prayer thing set off the alarms fast.
- I kinda found it weird how he jumped back and forth between loving Cisco, hating them, then loving them again. All of his videos now focus on AI tools which I feel have limited utility. The prayer was when I stopped watching his content.

Pretty much any channel once they make it big. I have watched so many channels that just starts out as a person in their basement, or bedroom and make great but simple content. Then they catch on, get a lot of subs and starts making content for the algorithm instead of their existing viewers. They go full time, hire an editor, a cameraman etc. And the content moves further and further away from what made it good to begin with.
A turning point is usually when they quit their dayjob and go full time, that's when the pressure to perform well really begins.
Some exceptions of course, like LGR and Explaining Computers, who just keep chugging along solo. And I still enjoy them because of it.
- The big big exception to this for me is the guys at Red Letter Media.
  Even once they got big, they're still just shitty b-movie lovers who don't really give a crap about an algorithm. And that's why I love 'em.
  
  They pissed off a lot of culture war grifters with their review of The Acolyte that was more about the culture war grifters then the series itself. They then made a video about them buying the mold for the Star Trek Salt Vampire monster that got much bigger numbers then the grifter's raging about RLM. It was great.
  
  So many RLM episodes have edits that are just annoying to watch, and they do that on purpose and I love them.
  
  I was never super into RLM at all, but i still appreciate that they still pretty much haven't changed.
- I remember way back, before people made money on YouTube, or right at the time maybe. I was watching some guy making videos in his backyard. He just talked, it was the simplest format imaginable, the most effort he ever made was wearing a different jacket to act as a second person. He was really funny and his content was relatable and he was just shooting the shit. After a while, he got a bunch of subscribers, i don't really remember the numbers, or what counts as many back then, but he started doing green screen stuff a lot. He made his videos more like a news show, he was wearing a tie and a suit and was an angry news anchor or something. It was still good, it was still funny, but it wasn't why i watched his videos, so i stopped. I went back a bit later and his video was basically him complaining because of dropped viewerships and the effort he makes to make better videos. It was pretty sad.
- the biggest issue for me is that it seems impossible to find those small channels anymore, whatever you search for, it'll just give you big ones, even if not really related to your query

LTT comes across as someone who simultaneously wants to be a boss and also do nut taps in the locker room. He himself admits he sucks at PR and then does PR solo style anyways or with Luke held hostage. He often takes things personally when it's actually a really good opportunity to show growth and standards, but I swear he misses the mark every. Single. Time. This behavior also corroborates the feelings of a staff member who left because someone higher up was creepy to her and wasn't ever confronted because that's the environment Linus fostered. You can't be a boss that's always joking because sometimes it's serious, and when it's serious, it's not always personal.
MKHD Always seemed like a bit of an Apple shill, but I gotta say it just got worse and worse. It's like he was shopping for himself and once he became a millionaire everything seemed like it was cheap if it was at all novel. He also handled that app launch insanely badly and seems like the type of dude to be impressed by anything a tech bro presents to him.
Berm Peak completely similar vibes. He's rich, so crazy expensive bikes and accessories are almost always a great deal because they're in his budget and high quality.
Ethan Klein I honestly don't know why I ever liked him apart from the copyright lawsuit with Matt Hoss. I appreciated the goofs, but for some reason it took me way too long to see that some of those people in no way shape or form deserved that treatment. Patrice Wilson for example, not to mention later when he devoted his entire life to hate watching Hasan and Hasan-adjacents while being incredibly deceptive about his and his wifes views on Israel. I ditched him before all that, but man what a massive shitshow he turned his channels into.
EEVBlog got high on his own supply. He's always been a bit snobbish, especially about sub par equipment that he already made up his mind about before opening, but I saw him talking about running for office with some dogshit platitudes that mean nothing like, "Dave'll take it apart and fix it all" and seemed very defensive when people were asking what his platform actually would be. God complex vibes from all that.
Gus Johnson because he treated his ex like crap and ran from accountability, and is now sneaking back into YouTube through his and his brother's account without ever really addressing his failures. He just wants everyone to move on and accept him again.
Cody Ko handled the fallout of sexual assault allegations horribly and is best friends for life with a known rapist, putting that relationship above everything. Gross guy, but before all that came out he was just a funny immature frat guy with a lot of jokes and good reactions. Major failure to meet the moment.
Scott Kilmer - just shitty political takes eventually wore me down.
AVE - shitty political views and then talking about teaching his daughter racist nursery rhymes was the final straw for me.
- I stopped watching eevblog during the pandemic, when he regularly ranted about the strict covid rules in Australia "even though there are barely any cases". Not realizing how those things are connected. Absolute idiot
  
  i followed asian youtube channel, and one of the owners complained the same way, yup eventually unravelled to bea dumb magat truck owning meathead/ while the owner is a "j peterson" type of person. and after firing a female employee who sorta exposed thier dirty little secret how they treated past female employee and even a "token "black" that kept on the channel. they were discussing news and opinion about , which was fine for the old fans, but eventually turns into "wokeness" whining.
- Yeah, I also used to like AvE's tool teardowns, I felt he did a good job explaining the little things you wouldn't think about, where companies cut costs, and if those cost/perf tradeoffs were done in a smart way or if it would bite you.
  Enter covid, and he's ranting about US politics and trucker convoys. Unsubscribed and haven't watched him since, tbh the channel was going downhill before then, but that was the straw that broke the camels back.
  Sad to hear he kept up with the bad views, but not surprising.
  
  I stopped watching when he made a joke about at least another trump term would be more interesting. Fuck you Canadian prick. You didn't have any skin in this game so I don't want to hear your shitty political takes. Unsubbed and haven't looked back.
  
  I used to watch AvE on long nights at work and even his tool teardowns got old quickly and the cracks started to show for me. Like every single one was him pointing out the same 10 things he knows about while bullshitting the rest.
  My final straw was before covid when he felt the need to post a video on a crane that collapsed in Seattle acting like some forensic analyst giving us his "expert take" on what occurred based off some grainy news footage. I know people just like him who always want to portray themselves as the expert on everything in the most condescending way, and that drives me up the fucking wall, so I had to dip out.
- I don't get that vibe from Berm Peak. If he's rich I can understand that he'd ride expensive bikes himself, but he seems to often make a point that more reasonably priced or old/used bikes can be just as fun, which I think is great when the marketing around bikes seems to try to push people to always want the newest high end stuff.
  
  yeah I've never gotten that impression from him either. from what I can recall, he always acknowledges price, and doesn't just do expensive stuff
  however, I hardly watch every video. and the algorithm pushes stuff so hard nowadays that you watch two videos on a different topic and then all your other regular stuff is never to be seen again unless you search for it.
  
  To put my own perspective into a box, I was just getting into the hobby and he is the highest quality channel on the matter. It was just disheartening to get the impression that the barrier to entry was so high, but it's fair if he wants better for his fans so long as he couples that in with statements like "my standards are way higher than a beginner's" etc. It'd be similar to MKHD propping up phones that are well outside a reasonable expense for a lot of people.
- Linus seems like a terrible boss to have
  
  Can you imagine the hemming and hawing he'd do if his employee unionized? He'd crash out for sure.
  
  he seems to be more "involved" since the incident with the employees a while back.
  
  Dude when they first launched Channel Super Fun it was like frat bro style activities they were engaging in that you'd be hard pressed to get HR to sign off on. I remember they basically kept dogging on one of their first work permit holders who was working on immigrating. I think his name was Dennis? Like yeah he clearly was straight out of college and lacked life skills but holy shit they took it way past playful teasing, and that's just what happened on camera that they felt fine to post.
- Yeah, I really used to like LTT but man, he does come across as a really cool guy that list his way and the constant product placement just like it for me.
  Scotty Kilmer was always click bait. I mean how many times did he have the title, "Goodbye, it's been nice" or similar?
  Berm Peak isn't the only one that does that. I'm a car guy and one by one most of the channels I watch lose me because they are all buying cars to work on that are so expensive, not only will I never own one, but I'll probably never even stand next to one. I agree with you.
- teaching his daughter racist nursery rhymes
  AVE did what? I bailed with his support of the trucker's protest, but it shouldn't surprise me.
  
  It's been too long to try and find it, but the gist was he was talking about how his daughter got in trouble at school or maybe a daycare for singing it the racist way instead of tiger. He went on to say he told her that she can only sing it that way at home. Barf
- The LTT allegations were investigated by a third party who was unable to substantiate the claims and were described as "largely unfounded, misleading, and unfair"
  
  I don't disagree that it's not diminimous by the legal standards of harassment, but I don't think that an arbitrator hired by the company is an accurate gauge of public perception given all of the facts. From my understanding she didn't elevate the issue sufficiently to constitute gross negligence for it going unaddressed. I can clearly see even Ilin their videos that their humor is "that's what she said" bro humor in what is supposed to be a professional environment. I wouldn't fault anyone for feeling entrapped by that behavior if they view it as a job and nothing more.
- I watch Berm Peak every now and then. He lives in WNC where I do but he is not a local. Anyway he seems like a nice guy but god damn he rides some expensive shit. The whole Ozark Trial series was interesting. He liked the bike after he did a good tune on it. Talk about how for a casual trail rider it is a great value for he money and then proceeded to put lipstick on a pig by upgrading it. I think at the end the sum of the part on the frame was like in excess of 3000 bucks. I still don't understand why he closed his AirBNB mountain bike retreat.
  
  I still don’t understand why he closed his AirBNB mountain bike retreat.
  He described in his move out video feeling it was morally dubious to have perfectly good housing stock as an AirBnB when someone could be living there.
  Like I get it, I'm at the point where I'm starting to look at long term investments and long term financial planning and having a small ADU or second home starts looking real smart really quick especially if you can cover the costs by renting it out or putting it on AirBnB, but you also have to consider the moral aspects.
- Damn didn't know that about Gus. Spot on about LTT. Who is AVE?
  
  He was a Canadian material science nerd with a lot of industrial knowledge and dirty humor. He would open up tools and talk about where he felt the company cheaped out, how good their molds were, and sometimes give ideas about what might break first.

Donut Media. They got bought out by an investment company and then all their videos became Buzzfeed style listicles.
- I find Speeed is as close to the original vibes as you can get. They've actually got some great videos. I want to like bigtime but I'm starting to wonder if they may have been part of the problem
  
  I've been enjoying BigTime but I think they're struggling hard behind the scenes trying to replicate their old, expensive production style in one of the most expensive areas in the country (they employ like a dozen people as a fairly new YouTube channel) as if they still have that funding, along with not having the technical expertise to do all the work they want to do to their projects.
  
  I love all of James' stuff so much when he was with donut, but speeed isn't hitting that spot for me. He seems to be just reviewing random stuff. Like I'm not watching his channel because of his hiking gear review, I'm watching it because dude has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of car companies and their history.
- They also lost all their content creators, but BigTime is boring and clearly they have no good ideas for content.

Well Wranglerstar is pretty good example. Used to be about homesteading and tools, then turned into politics, grifting and Jesus talk. There's even a subreddit dedicated for hating him for it.
Van Neistat (Casey's brother) is another one for me. It's actually one of those channels that went from me utterly loving it to entirely stopping watching it the quickest. I can't really put my finger on why but I think I just started to get the sense that this is a job for him, not a passion.
- I had followed Wranglerstar's descent off the cliff, but I never knew about the subreddit till now. Much obliged.
- Wranglerstar was a huge disappointment, I hope he realizes his failure when he looks at Project Farm's success. Another victim of Covid mania maybe.
- Wranglerstar's comments are a cesspool. One video had an Easter egg of a radio playing some rightwing trash and people were yukking it up. Between the Jesus stuff, and the closeted dick riders, I was done.
- Same here with Van. I thought he had something to say or there was something I could learn from him. But really he a just really into himself and thinks hes way more important than he could possibly be.

I'm just waiting for someone to uncover that Fireship is a secret Nazi, he gives me all the same vibes as the internet historian
- The channel is owned by private equity
  
  Same one that bought Veritasium, iirc
- His takes are bad anyways

Basically any channel that started doing "reaction" content. Oh you're reading the top page of Reddit today? Cool, what creative value does that have to me? Absolutely none. Goodbye. I get that it's really popular but I have no idea why, and I get it's cheap to make but it's also shit, so you get what you pay for I guess.
The only exception to this is Jimmy Broadbent who occasionally does his "Sim Racing Stewards" series which is basically his take on Reddit user submitted clips of their online racing mishaps. I find it really interesting to watch because he has so much sim racing experience and, albeit less, experience of real world racing with real life stewards and racing rules. It's entertaining and interesting and I want to know his opinion on these incidents because he has enough context to have an opinion, and doesn't act like his opinion is gospel.
- The only good reaction videos are from corridor crew
- sniperwolf, doctor mike yea , i never got around to consuming his content, but he did have a few drama incidents that are not caused by him. sniperwolf herself is a problem, she doxxed and stalked someone.

Top Gear, Not sure if this fully counts as YouTube but I’m sure that’s where most of us watched it. It hasn’t been the same since Jeremy, Richard, and James left.
- Their spinoff shows haven't been the same, either. It's less about the cars and more about playing up their personalities. Or I'm just getting older and am tired of Clarkson being a condescending, belligerent prick about everything. To a lesser degree, I'm a bit bored of Hammond as well. Somehow, May is who I enjoy the most. Geek out, dgaf
  
  He is the most down to earth normal guy of the bunch, and the only one I think I'd get along with if I ever met him IRL. The others... Didn't really handled their fame well
  
  It was never about the cars, it was the chemistry and banter between the three.
  And I’ve watched it since they looked like this 😁
- Here is the thing, i loved top gear a lot and to some extend i also like their other stuff just as much. But going back to the original top gear is kind of painful. A lot of it feels like filler, a lot of famous people talk about their movies. Famous people driving cars and a lot of their segments are actually pretty boring. I think when people remember the good old top gear, they talk about the specials, because they are just really good and fun

Stephanie Sterling (and not for the reason you probably think).
I understand that the gaming industry is shit, and therefore reporting on it is always going to skew negative, but it really felt to me like the negativity started permeating their content as a whole - to the point that I got the feeling that they didn't really enjoy video games at all anymore.
I also started to get the feeling that they resent their audience for responding positively to such negative content, too - doing things like complaining that the worst-of lists get more views than the best-of lists. You don't have to make them if you don't want to.
Also, it's cool that they found a passion, but I really don't care about wrestling.
- Yeah same. For some reason I just liked the old persona a lot more. Just something about that uncompromising "I am right because I say so. Thank God for me". I didn't agree with all opinions but the persona just felt unique. Then they shifted a lot to the weird. Wtf was that cornflakes homunculus? That was still pre transition and continued after. Haven't watched a video in a few years, maybe they have found a new solid identity by now but that interim period just put me of to mutch.
  
  I just find it hard to take her critics seriously these days. She plain out said that all she wants from a game is to make a cute girl and dress her up and do stuff. Which is fine. But you can't call a game bad and the developers bad for not making that game. She talked about Deep rock galactic for a second, which is one of my favourite games, from some of the best developers we have. And she just complained that there are no female dwarfs, even after all these years, so she won't play it and it's bad.
- She is busy writing these days but she did several positive videos that were well received, I think her sporadic video releases will be 50/50 from now on
- Hey same. I mainly listened to her podcast and that for two or three years now. Some of their opinions are spot on i find, but oftentimes i find it really hard to listen to.
  If they don't like a game for just one little reason, it's the worst game ever made and fuck everything about it. But if they like a objectively shit game, they find every reason to defend it. The biggest example to me was when pal waorld came out. They are super into pokemon, and honestly in a bit of a weird way. Pokémon games have been embarrassingly bad for a while now, but they shat on palworld so hard because it encouraged slavery and they didn't like that, so they hardly played it and called it a bad knock off. When the last Pokémon game by game freak came out, which is TERRIBLE laura just talked about how much she liked it, despite it being an obvious low efford cash grab. And Stephanie just bit her tongue, even tho you could hear how much she despised what the game was and what it represents.
  Same with arc raiders. I don't want to defend arc raiders, it's not my kind of game and i'm not a fan of gen AI. But at least they pay their voice actors, and the game has hardly any to begin with. But they didn't even care. AI bad, fuck them. But what really got me was when steph was ragging on that the game was pointless, because you walk around, collecting shit to craft other shit and then do it again, and that's stupid. Like what the fuck is a your pokemon game? You go around and collect some dumb ass pokemon for the past 20+ years, and that is somehow better.
  I don't dislike them, they seem like cool people, i just don't get it, and i feel like they got worse and I can't really listen to them anymore.
- I was never that into Sterling, to be honest.
  But yeah, the wrestling thing seems to permeate gaming video makers and podcasters in general. I feel like you could come up with a dangerous drinking game based on taking a swig every time a gaming media personality brings up some wrestling shit.

Degraded as in opinion or actual metrics?
If it's opinion I feel most channels naturally degrade over time as the broadcasters personality changes with the popularity increase.
My largest case and it's a likely a controversial take would be Markiplier. When he hit fandom he all but left the youtube lets play field in favor of other opportunities(which to be fair he was fully upfront with before he did it), then after months of almost no activity he came back with a different personality. (somewhat like how Jack did when he did his rebrand but was more noticeable). My eye opener to it was his GTFO series, I don't know of a good way to put it, he seemed super offputting and mean/childish to the people he had gamed with for years. I know it was likely meant to be a bit but, after an extended inactivity in the genre and then coming back and acting like that it was whiplash. He also seems to really be putting his fandom/viewer base on the side burner with everything, he hasen't posted regular videos in a long time(I expect it's due to his movie that he's putting his heart and soul into) and it's made it so I no longer get recommendations to any of his content since his channel has fallen off the algorithm for me. Like don't get me wrong, I still like his content(when he releases it), and he's been clear that youtube was a stepping stone for him and that his passion is in other areas but for the sake of the question I feel the channel fits.
- youtube was a stepping stone for him
  This has been clear from the beginning. Dude wanted to make movies and fell into gaming.
  
  agree, why I mentioned that in the post. Still doesn't change the outcome that it degraded the channel which was why I used it as an example.
- When my wife and I first moved in together she was an avid Markiplier watcher, and we watched all of his first? 24 hour stream. At like 3am he opened up probably way more than he wanted to and talked about how he struggles with interpersonal relationships, and how he always ends up pushing people away, as well as his incredibly unhealthy work ethic and I honestly can't remember the rest but he basically described how he always tries to portray himself very differently from how he is in reality, even in private with friends. Ever since then I can see it where he really does seem to always be playing a character of some sort (and the character definitely does change at times), plus people he's collabed with and referred to as friends seem to eventually disappear (except for Ethan, he seems to be the one who's always stuck through it all)
  Basically he's got some demons that I really hope he's been able to find healthier ways to cope with
- its usually for the worst, always ends up being right wing, or showing thier increasingly political bias.

The one that jumps to mind for me the most has got to be Rick Beato.
When I first found out about him he was just a super passionate and likeable dude totally geeking out listening to stems of classic records, just being endlessly appreciative and highlighting things that he thought were cool in a way that was reasonably accessible to regular music listeners. On the side he did some more technical music theory and musicianship stuff, which I could take or leave to be honest. But overall it felt like a channel that was there for sharing this dude's love of music with others.
Lately it's just been pounded down into mediocrity, I feel. He spends a lot of time chasing after bullshit trendy stories about AI music, spotify rankings, controversies of the week, long rambling live stream rants about various meta things that nobody has time for. The silver lining to all of that is that he has been doing interviews with musicians, which are generally pretty good, but it really depends on who he's talking to. I understand that DMCA takedowns get in the way of breaking down songs, and that sucks, but my problem is that it's often kind of negative stuff that distracts from talking positively about music, musicianship, production, etc.
I think he knows this because he recently put out a video about a big "change of direction" in the channel.
- I liked the first video I saw of his a while back, but after the second or third video I realized he likes the smell of his own farts way too much. I can't watch him anymore.
  
  I don’t really follow him but I watched his Hiromi interview. When she tries to explain something to him by first asking “do you know xxx?”, he answers with “of course I do” like he’s insulted someone would ask him that; even though Hiromi was just innocently trying to set a frame of reference so she could explain what she wanted to say. I agree he’s a bit too smug for my tastes.

pretty much all of the ones that got bought out by PE. the biggest offender of that in my realm is veritasium
AvE used to be good but a while back starting saying dumb right wing political stuff. not dumb because it was right wing, to be clear. just that it was right wing and also was dumb. I still have thisoldtony though, he's better anyways. AvE mostly just had funny quips with a bit of knowledge. ToT has funny scripts and a lot of knowledge.
Scotty Kilmer was always a character, but I stopped watching years ago because idk I guess he just started putting out crappy clickbait content? idr
most Minecraft channels simply ran out of content to produce. the best two, to me right now, are mahjongblonsky and bigbooty17
what else... there's a ton of those informational sciency type channels that I no longer like because they're just too big budget trying to appeal to too many people. smartereveryday lost appeal to me — though I cannot say if quality has declined. it just lost appeal to me. mark rober, similar situation. haven't seen a video from either of them in a year, but been phasing it out for several now. I disliked when a bunch of channels did promo stuff with the US military, too.
oh, MKBHD — turned into a shill for excessive-tech-having cars. at least he made a separate channel for automotive content. I think? still, another situation of somebody speaking in your area of knowledge — I couldn't take him seriously or hear the shitty opinions any longer. as a counter, UnderDunn made a separate channel for his automotive content, and while not my favourite stuff to watch, it's not shill crap like MKBHD.
I tried scrolling through my YouTube subscriptions to see what other channels fit the bill, but I've already unsubscribed from them...
- AvE was such a disappointment. I mean, I get it, people can have whatever political opinions and positions. when you start to bring those opinions into your content which is completely unrelated, I stop watching you. I'm sure it's the same way on the "other side" as well.
  now I get all my machinist fixes from ToT and Uri Tuchman. Uri is weird as fuck but I love him for it 😂.
  
  Might I suggest Clickspring. It was actually AvE who turned me onto him. Clickspring aka G'day Chris Heah is an Australian man who makes soul-achingly beautiful videos about clockmaking. He's on a very long project of building a replica Antikythera mechanism, from which has already emerged some serious academic research.
  
  no idea who Uri is. thanks for the recc.
- AvE is such a shame. His teardown of the juicero is one of my favourite videos of his but his new content is just not the same. And the right wing garbage. I don't even remember what he said specifically I just remember thinking "what the hell" and immediately being turned off of his content.
  ToT is the best tho, love his content and video style. Amazing quality.
  
  same, it was long enough ago that I was struggling to word what had happened
  recently learned that cyfyhomeinspections is a kirkk loving trumper, too. that's incredibly disappointing for somebody who appeared to have integrity. just goes to show how two faced a good ol' american christian is
  
  Most often, we won't remember what one said. But we will always remember how they made us feel.
- Ave used be a hero to me. He motivated me to learn more trades and go further.
  Then I learned the trades, welding, electrical, machining, cad, cnc, hydraulics, marine, you name it I do it. And the more I learned, I realize he is truly a bumble fuck who doesn't actualy know fuck about fuck. He was still fun and good. Then he started to get political. So now he became a some fuck who preached political shit, who had no leg to stand on.
- as far as Minecraft content goes, check out Kolanii. He only uploads only every couple of months, but thats because you can tell he actually spends all that time one the video..
  He started out with One Block Skyblock stuff, then did absolutely insane builds in Hardcore and has recently transitioned into a whole Kolanii cinematic universe in his Hardcore World. If your mainly interested in that, start with the an AI joined my World video, uploaded about a year ago
- Well MKBHD was always a shill (like most reviewers), I like notebookcheck (which is more in depth and objective). And I don't mind Scotty Kilmer, I just try to ignore clickbaites.

Lunduke and Sabine Hossenfelter took similar paths downward towards more money in the rage economy.
- Lunduke went full conspiracy brained and Sabine went full grift. I cringe every time I think of either of them now.
  
  I used to subscribe to her a couple years ago but stopped. What do you mean by grift?

Braille Skateboarding. Dude shut it down without letting his team know beforehand because he'd fallen deep into Scientology.
- Yes, I know of this one too. I used to have watched a lot of the "You Make It, We Skate It" videos which was a nice interaction between fans and the channel.
  But then some drama and there had been numerous dramasodes happening prior to the warehouse being destroyed, where Aaron went away and it was taken over by some other guy where the videos were nothing but back-to-back SKATE games which got old quick. Aaron comes back and things seemed promising but I think more stuff happened where one of the members turned out to be a pedo. Lance ended up leaving, but he too is kindof a scientologist as well.
  Then the big blow-off with the warehouse where there was a series of miscommunications, there was some grifting going on where anything the channel got monetarily and other financial sources, it got funneled into Scientology.
  It was a trainwreck.
  
  I think it's the worst fall I've personally watched a channel take.
- Oh wow, I knew he was a scientologist years ago which factored into why I stopped watching that channel. Seems like he destroyed everything.

Everything on YouTube apart from niche special interest content creators has gone to shit because all these high viewership channels got bought out by private equity.

Bourbon Moth
Loved to watch his videos as he made woodworking accessible. He also does really good work.
Then one day he built an epoxy river table then promptly blew it up... Literally blew it up... Which spread all that epoxy all over the place in a forested area. I still watched, but next he did a video on rags catching fire and it was all obviously staged. That was it for me, I unsubscribed then told Youtube to never suggest his videos again.
AVE
Funny enough it was AVE that exposed Bourbon Moth on his BS regarding the towels combusting. However, shortly after that whole thing AVE just really went downhill. Instead of being informative and amusing, his videos just turned into the narcissist's playbook for look at me! Haven't watched one of his videos since. Which is a shame, because his earlier videos were really interesting.
- I used to love AVE, but there was a video where he seemed very proud of the fact that he taught his little girl the racist version of "Eeny Meanie Minnie Moe" and I couldn't find excuses for him any more. Then he cheered for the small business tyrant trucker revolt later and it affirmed my decision to unsub earlier.
  
  I didn't know about him teaching his daughter that... Must have missed that video or had already unsubscribed.
  Definitely an immediately unsubscribe reason.
  
  I unsubbed after the convoy thing, but I didn't know about the other bit or I would have blocked him earlier.

Let people explore their creativity 😢 The unsubscribe button is always there if you lose interest. That's what YouTube was about back in the day. You. Not how many you can please for likes and shares and enfuckment. Post what you want, and interact with people who like your content.

Cinemassacre, for a couple reasons:
The character of the AVGN is based on Mike Matei, not James Rolfe. James is mainly a horror movie nerd, and Mike is the gamer. As toxic as Matei can be about gaming, When Mike left, part of the Nerd left with him.
They expanded to more recent games. It was inevitable, but it really killed the last personal touch the series had. The AVGN Earthbound episode is a great outlier, because you can tell that James wanted to make it and had at least some connection to the game. Most of the episodes now, he's reviewing games he has no connection to, using a script written by someone else.
Game Grumps, for similar reasons. Dan stopped being familiar with the games they played, so he stopped offering as much input. During Covid especially, he would order in food and just eat for half of the episode. They pivoted to not really marking the number of an episode in a series, thus making it harder to follow a series. Then they started releasing longer episodes and doing stuff like the 10 Minute Power Hour. I originally was drawn to the fact that you could watch an episode of GG or play it as background noise and still get some good laughs or vibes. That kinda went out the window, and so did I.

I've dropped a couple of channels because I suspected the presenter was a choad. I once unsubed from a movie-review channel because the presenter made a joke about "games journalism".
Another popular channel had (has) amazing content about historical guns. I first got a bad taste in my mouth because he covered some shit from Rhodesia. But I decided to give the benefit of the doubt. I know that collecting Nazi artifacts doesn't imply politics. Then the channel decided to cover "anti-riot" "crowd control" type weapons during the George Floyd Summer protests. Nah, I'm out.
- When YouTube recommends a movie/game review channel, more than half the time I check their history they have videos complaining about "woke" or feminist themes. It's a minefield finding good video essayists on that platform who aren't terrible people.
  
  like the channel owners making "anti-woke comments" or the comments in the seciton, i often see anti-woke comments in the comment section by random users.
- Way back in the before times I watched Shadiversity when he was just about swords and nerdy fun.
  When he fell down the Choad Hole so deep and hard, I dropped him like a hot branding iron. I'm so happy to see his channel floundering and failing and his constant, pathetic attempts to make himself seem like a victim for it. I will treat myself to a cupcake when his channel finally goes under.
- FW has sooo many Rhodesia gun videos, it's such a clear red flag
  
  I disagree that covering Rhodesian arms is a red flag. Rhodesia gets sucked off by a lot of terrible people, but their arms are legitimately interesting because they are different and because they have influenced a lot of modern conflicts.
  I also agree that FW is very sus. He famously had a falling out with InRange TV over whether 2A rights should extend to people of all identities or not. If he isn't a bigot, he is at least a coward.

For some obvious and dated answers: AVGN and =3

Pretty much all the old gaming YTers I used to watch I barely have time for because of how long the videos are. Most of this is down to streaming, and how long and plodding VODS are.
Also, ditto anytime they transition to doing it full-time. I remember YT in the 2000's when people basically just did it as a hobby.
- It’s also because YT drastically changed their payment scheme a while back. They used to pay out based on views, (IIRC a view was counted as 85% of the video watched) which encouraged creators to create short videos. After all, 85% of a 2 minute video is only ~100 seconds. But 85% of a 20 minute video is 17 minutes. And both the 100 second and 17 minute view paid out the same amount. So creators prioritized shorter videos, because not very many people had the time or attention span for the 17 minutes of watch time required for a single view.
  But YouTube changed that a while ago, and now they pay out based on total watch time. Now that 2 minute video needs to attract 10x as many viewers, in order to pay out the same as a single viewer on a 20 minute video. Since new viewers are harder to attract, creators began prioritizing longer videos to make the most of their limited viewer base.
- Yeah. Seems like most gaming channels are trying to double dip with streaming and YouTube now. Where their content has been replaced with slightly edited streams.
  
  Streaming is a much more predictable, and often more lucrative, income with less effort (generally). Hard to blame the creators that change focus.

Casual Navigation
The creator sold it and the last time I was looking it was AI slop
- Yeah I was afraid of that.

Ashens, but I can understand why, he's been on youtube for 19 Earth years. He's doing the same schtick he's been doing since there was hope in the world, there's basically no object that fits on a sofa he hasn't snarked about. An entire registered voter's life ago, he would do some quite edgy content, but it's faded to snark. I wish him all the best, he seems to be an okay guy.
The Modern Rogue face planted hard. I think Brushwood tried growing the business bigger and faster than it could, while making a few obvious mistakes.
- Losing Jason was a huge blow to Modern Rogue. Content comes and goes but personality is really hard to replace, so is writing talent.
  
  Especially for a show that was really about the interaction between two friends. What you really tuned into the Modern Rogue to see was Brian and Jason screwing around together.

Most of them to be honest, not through their fault but the ever tightening squeeze of ABC Corp. on what is "acceptable" content and language. To the point some are giving up or deplatforming from Youtube to elsewhere. Stephanie Sterling if I had to say one but that's because they even acknowledged it's just the same thing over and over again. So they do less videos unless it's something particularly poignant.
- Fuck I gotta go watch some of her shit I used to love it

Philosophy Tube
- Contrapoints along the same lines?
  
  Contrapoints keeps showing her hand as a straight up liberal Zionist, so there's that
  
  Contrapoints/Natalie has a weird history of making her private relationships big public beefs between herself and other creators, or siding with people she's connected with over factual information.
  I dropped her on her refusal to address Palestine in such a performative, midwitted way. I was so disappointed because I had watched her for years, she was part of my furthering left and understanding gender issues in new ways so it was sad to see her obviously facing some kind of ethical dilemma about something so clearly evil and horrendous and easy to call out. Even if she didn't want to make a whole video on it, she could have just said "Yah it's bad, I am not sure how to tackle it, I'll think about how" and probably saved herself from a mass exodus of fans.
  
  I didn’t have any political reasons. I just grew to dislike the writing style. I became disenchanted by the style of the videos.
  I’m still up for watching new Contrapoints videos.
  
  Contra is fine
  But if you don't want to sour your opinion on PT even more, don't look into the history between the two
- I watched a few of her videos just to have something on in the background while I worked. A lot of the takes presented didn't sit quite right with me, but I didn't know why. Then I watched her videos on Nietzsche and realized she hasn't read and actually understood what he wrote, despite claims to the contrary. I blocked the channel. I later found a sort-of response video from some other YouTuber that went through those videos and confirmed she didn't understand the material by countering each point with actual receipts.
- Took a while to see this one. Even back before Abigale was Abigale, I was deeply connected with some of the truly heartfelt and profound content they produced. So it's been sad to see a lot of her new content lean harder into performance and less into substance.
  Going back to their earliest videos, set pieces and costumes were used here and there to make a point, now it's way overblown and distracting and silly when the subject matter is also superficial examination of "meh" topics.
  
  Yeah, that resonates with me.

Most degrade over time as they either grow tired of doing it after years of treating it as a job/ buisness with mutliple employees or they move on to other things and its just no longer a priority besides keeping the revenue going. Similar to watching a TV series or a podcast, they are all eventually must end but some go way past their time or upload frequency that worked and just end up a either corporate style mess since it is a job to sell ad space now or just too exhausted from the years to keep up the effort of being good. The second part is moreso for those that switched over to mainly streaming to make clips of them reacting to other people's content.
OG Youtube watcher since back with the Lonely Island being the only thing on there at The start. Ironically they're still pushing 20 years later as a podcast now vs their SNL style skits.

Do you guys remember Ray William Johnson? Last time I looked he was doing like super weird clickbait-y non news story naration. I don't know if anyone understands what I tried to say there.
- How long ago? I remember stumbling onto his videos a few years ago and they were clickbait back then.
  
  I knew the guy for commenting on viral videos, that must have been about 15 years ago. Probably was clickbait even back then but I thought the guy was hilarious. But I don't know how I'd feel about his old videos nowadays. They probably did't age well.
- It's funny you bring him up, cause I didn't like the guy back in the day when he was popular, but he's matured quite a bit in recent years to the point where I not only no longer find him annoying, I even became a subscriber as well.
  He puts out so much content that his videos are perfect for binging when you need some background noise or something to fall asleep to. You'll never see the same video twice. I'm glad I gave him a second chance.
  
  Same here =3

Regular Car Reviews definitely peaked long ago.
They've largely stuck to the same formula for the past decade-plus, hiding masters-level literary theory, and copious amounts of toilet humor, under the guise of automotive journalism. And there's nothing wrong with sticking to the tried-and-true.
I still enjoy their videos, I make sure to watch them every Monday morning like clockwork. But they just don't hit the same anymore. There's not much that's memorable about their commentary these days, unless the vehicle in question is unusual on its own, like the shuttle bus RV conversion they reviewed... four months ago. I had to scroll past a bunch of videos for cars I honestly forgot they'd reviewed, when I checked their channel just now.
I miss the anger. I miss the passion that resulted from it. Brian's acknowledged this, and he's mentioned how he's just generally calmer and happier these days. And there's nothing wrong with that. I admit to souring a bit to all the giveaway cars he'd review/advertise... especially how you'd enter these giveaways by paying FIFTY dollars, pre-shipping, for a crappy camping mug, with a vaguely car-culture-related picture on it. But not an RCR mug. And I respect him for having (largely) stopped doing those giveaways.
But, like, the last video of RCR's that has actually stuck in my mind, was when they absolutely ripped into an Oldsmobile Bravada. And that came out nearly 5 years ago.
- For me, RCR was one of those cases where I finally heard him talk about something I know a lot about, and he was so full of shit that I knew I couldn’t trust him on anything else. His VW beetle video from a couple years ago was so poorly researched, it was apparent not only that he was just paraphrasing Wikipedia and things people had told him, but that he hadn’t actually understood any of it himself. That and the engine building videos from his Falcon made me realize that he probably didn’t know what the hell he’s talking about with anything else, he just says it authoritatively.
- Oh my god, they finally quit it with the constant giveaways? I could not stand those and completely stopped watching the channel.
  
  The giveaways haven't completely stopped, but they don't make up every third/fourth review anymore. I think they only did two this entire year. And they've hardly ever pushed them when they did happen.
  But yeah, I didn't enjoy them either. Could've been better executed, at least.
- Respectfully disagree. I was a fan from the first Honda Accord video and was a pattreon supporter when he opened it. I still watch watch every video.
  It's been so long. I can't expect the same content as 10/15 years ago and I can't exext the guys to be the same people. But the groove is there. The humor is there. It's still raunchy and the furry stuff is different and fresh. I love RCR and I think the content still peaking.

I saw Markiplier do a lets play for some indie roomba game many many years ago, he proceeded to have an almost religious experience, and I was like "fuck yeah, this guy gets it"
Fast forward and he promotes shit like No Mans Sky and TikTok, I automatically unsubscribe from anyone and everyone who promotes TikTok, and he's got this whole survivorship bias like "ANYONE can make a successful movie or webseries. Anyone! A Heist with Markiplier was only like $30,000 dollars production value... well, okay, thats a lot of money, but still!"
He's lost touch with reality and now he's just another salesperson.
Another one that's kind of downhill is Kurzegast, their recent AI video was really hollow and vacant of all the reasonable criticisms about AI and its immediate effects, some people have theorized that channels like theirs are being sponsored by a company called "Control AI" to muddy the waters and move the discussion away from things like holding companies accountable.

Nearly all of them. Even if you pay for premium or use an ad blocker, the YouTubers just make their own commercials as part of the content and the more popular they become the more ads they create.

Skallagrim huffs his own farts almost as much as Matt Easton. I miss Mr. Chickadee.
- There are two "sword tubers" i used to watch a lot, Shadiversity and Skallagrim.
  Shad fell so deep down the choad-hole that I now celebrate any news of him miserable and ranting about his failing channel.
  Skallagrim's self-huffing persona hasn't changed a whole lot but I have come to care about him and his life and know he's struggling to squeeze blood from a stone with his content, so I continue to support him with views. He seems a genuinely nice person with progressive values but doesn't make that his persona.

This might be too niche for anyone here, but Ronny Dahl.
He used to make good videos on four wheel driving in Australia, with good gear tips and longer form camping trips with his friends. Well, either he started editing his videos alone or stopped taking his meds or something, but now every video is quick cuts, stupid voice effects, stories that build into nothingburgers or intermingled stories that have nothing to do with each other and just get confusing. I also notice those friends he used to camp with aren't in his videos any more, so that's probably saying something.
At least I still have the 4WD 24/7 guys (although I don't really like the "next generation" they're trying to bring in).

FilmRiot
Used to be a fun channel about DIY filmmaking. They would replicated a number of things using DIY gear (how to make a dolly track, etc...)
After a while, it became entirely about replicating digital effects in After Effects and stuff like that, and when they do talk about hardware, it's sponsored content about gear that is far out of any amateur filmmaker's budget.

Skallagrim! I am subbed to him also.
He is and has always been the weird metalhead kid in high school who is really obsessed with medieval weapons and not very socially apt. I don't mind his takes personally.
It's off topic to the rest of the thread, but I also want to point out that LGR has been consistently good for more than a decade.
Channels that are in the process of going down the tubes would include Skeeter Jean, Jidion and Predator Poachers. which are really three flavors of the same thing but they're all going downhill fast - although Predator Poachers (or more specifically, the guy behind him, Alex Rosen) has always been a scummy person.
- I think Skal has been struggling to figure out ways to squeeze blood from the stone that is his entire channel topic. It must be challenging as fuck to draw out more video ideas on swords and weapons when you're also struggling personally with your health and money, but he seems a genuinely nice dude with progressive values so I will continue to support him.
  I used to watch him and Shadiversity but holy shit did Shad take a nose-dive, what a fucking piece of shit and I hope he chokes on his dumb fucking red gambeson as his channel flames out.

In my opinion Game theory has degraded quite a bit, partly because they grew too big and started bumping out more and more content on multiple channels which in my opinion saturated quite a bit. It doesn't help that there exists now long form video essays that go much more indepth in certain aspects of games and other forms of entertainment. MatPat leaving did also leave huge void that they can probably never fully replace.
Jimquisition or now rebranded as 'Stephanie Sterling' channel has also degraded quite a bit albeit there are some highs here and there. I liked their game coverage and loved the "Squirty Plays" and "Jimpressions" where they played and made fun of numerous sloppy games but they seem to no longer make them (maybe twitch? but I don't watch Twitch). But Jimquisition has become quite repetitive with its ramblings and I don't really care all that much about any of the LGBTQIA+ or wrestling stuff. Still following the channel though for those better videos that do occasionally pop up.
Similarly YongYea is one of those channels I've started to watch less. It's one of those channels that try really hard to please the audience by telling them what they want to hear instead of having more nuanced takes. Not only that many of his videos are overly long while providing very little substance. Nowdays I prefer Bellular News and Second wind more, and If I ever watch YongYea i'll ususally just jump a head in the video immediately when I hear him start rambling instead of focusing on actual news.
This may be hot take but Hbomberguy has degraded not necessarily in the quality but in the quantity department. I'd much more prefer smaller more concises videos more frequently than 1-3 hour long mega essays that get realeased like every other year. While many of these can be bangers I am not sure if they're overall worth the wait. These could at least be split to multiple smaller videos to spread out the content a bit and make them easier to digest. It's also huge risk if the topic is not something that doesn't interest you all that much. Similar could be said about ActionButton a.k.a Tim Rogers who took more than 2 years? to make 9 hour video about La Noire? Which I can't be bothered to watch because it's age restricted in youtube which would require me to log in.

The why files feels very AI generated now, both visuals and story telling.

I've been watching the Kings and Generals channel for a number of years now and I'm noticing the quality starting to waver a bit in the last couple years.

I might be playing Devil's Advocate here, but Psivewri.
I started watching him years ago for his tech videos, usually restoring mundane computers, and I still enjoy that content.
However, he started getting into automotive, and I'm glad that he's stretching out into other areas. It's clear he's still learning and probably on my level of mechanics (backyardie who can watch videos and read a workshop manual), but my issue is how he presents the videos like he knows what he's doing, almost like a tutorial - giving random tips throughout.
His Dad assists him with the work he does on cars (like myself) and in that sense, I'd rather hear tips from the Dad than him because I'd have more confidence he knows what he's talking about.
Otherwise maybe PhoenixSC? I started watching him when he was uploading redstone contraptions to r/Minecraft and he had 4K subscribers. His older, experimental videos were always interesting, and his work on adventure maps like PokeCA was amazing to watch.
Today, most of his videos boil down to the following:
Meme reactions
Takes on Mojang controversy and how he believes the community should respond
Joke Minecraft creations
I'm glad that he's grown to be more confident in himself and in general, become more entertaining when he talks, but I feel he's gone too much into the mainstream over the last few years rather than keeping to his lane.

Used to love Flossy Carter. His long form videos and overall style weren't for everyone, but personally I thought he was massively entertaining and funny. Hasn't been the same since he was called out for promoting a scam and then doubling down and using homophobic slurs against people who criticised him. An apology would have went a long way.

I still like Skallagrim. He still gave helpful reviews about blacksmiths and historical weapons that I'm interested in. And IMO, his channel was always more entertainment than scholarship. But HEMA is a martial art that develops slowly, way slower than YouTube algorithm's demand. There are not many new stuffs to talk about. If there has to be fillers to get his channel going, I'm okay with that.
Edit: Back to the topic. There are not many channels that I care about degraded to the point that I can't bare. What makes me a little sad is that from time to time, channels stop publishing videos. Especially after Covid, people found better things to do, so they hibernated their YouTube channels.

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