Not sure how many of you will know about Tom from the Geowizard channel, but I recently learned he's a reform voter (UK's trump-style party, Nigel Farage) and honestly I was kinda devastated. Took me completely by suprise too, considering he never talked about anything political and the nature of the content and his actions would've never suggested it. In hindsight there were a few small tip-offs that I brushed out as him being a bit old-school/rural and not very plugged in to internet culture and modern no-no's. I found out by listening to an album he recently released and one of the songs is about the replacement theory conspiracy...

I used to watch Destiny, and while I still like that he does tons of research and shows people why maga talking points are wrong, I started noticing more and more I hate being around people who really care about their ego. He would be having a discussion with someone and instead of saying hm that's partially true but here's what I think could be missing, he says NO that is WRONG! It's such a massive waste of time to care about "winning" a debate, both people learn less and get more angry. I've noticed this with basically everyone who gets successful streaming, they kinda lock in at the age they were when they got successful.

All of them. All they do now is bitch about the algorithm and YouTube policies. They turn from content on a subject to a bizarre social realtionship with the viewers. Nah dude, I don't care about you cat's hemorrhoids, just rebuild that carburator.

VanlifePlus, or as the channel is now known, MATV. I started watching because I had an interest in Van Life. Regardless of your opinion on Van Life, it was a good channel, as he really showed what it was like to live in a van, and trying to navigate fatherhood as well as a full time job, etc. Matthew is very personable, and likeable. He explored not only places to stay in a van, but actual camping in a van as well.

He finally made enough money from YouTube to get his own place, and now he's only part time in the van, and is trying to get a gaming channel going, as well as building out a trailer for camping. I still find him likeable, but his content just isn't doing it for me anymore. I can see that the views on his channel are going down, so it's just a matter of time before he either has to quit YouTube and get a full time job, or supplement his YouTube with a job on the side. The content just isn't there anymore.

Bellular news. It used to be focused on giving gaming news. Now they use gaming news as an introduction for long ramblings, and added click bait titles.

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.

Almost all of them that "care" have terrible thumb nails and titles. Just so clickbaity. Channels seem to get worse over time on that front

Lindybeige lost basically all credibility for me after the whole "Spandau" fiasco where he was trying to talk authoritatively about things he clearly didn't understand or had any knowledge of. It really made me question whether he knew anything at all about the things that I didn't know much about (pre-modern warfare mostly) and I ended up not watching another video of his after that.

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...

Lunduke and Sabine Hossenfelter took similar paths downward towards more money in the rage economy.