It has been years now that I only care about my subscriptions. I also installed an extension to remove anything else (especially shorts!), and that works great for me.

The downside is perhaps that I rarely discover new content, but YT can't be trusted to give me that organically.

Every time I access YT without being logged to my account and this extension, I'm surprised by the amount of garbage that YT feeds me based on my IP and/or location they infer from it. I worry what effect that is having in the population that consume it without safeguarding.

Sure, there's always been garbage TV, but this is the next level, and on demand.

I did the same. Unhooked for desktop and UnTrap for iOS. No suggestions, no shorts, and no comments. Just the videos from creators I subscribed to.