Interesting. I don't know if you intended it, but algorithm free means no recommendations to me - even no recommended videos alongside existing videos. You want a video? You have to search for something.

I think that is a surprisingly good solution. You can still access educational information, or really whatever videos you want, but you have to actively seek them out rather than ingest whatever is spit out at you.

Search results are pretty much the same thing though. It's a ranked list of recommended videos. It's just based on your text instead of the video you're watching.

I've used plugins like unhook in the past which do exactly this and it's nice. Now I just follow channels via rss and block everything else on the page. Same deal.