While it is depressing that so many people are already psychologically locked-in to YouTube and Facebook and Instagram, seemingly ignorant of free open source software alternatives like Diaspora, Mastadon, GNU Social, and others, the network effect (aka. Metcalf effect) will only exaggerate this lock-in over the short term, until things like mass boycotts of Facebook and Google platforms results from the wider spread realisation these social media corporations are essentially making money out of our private data (our search and view histories).
It is a hard campaign to get our favourite channels to migrate to something like DTube, or to start a free and open alternative to YouTube (LeftieTube would be a nice thing, as would LeftiePatreon). The problem being the alt-right and IDW crowds have, by many estimates, polluted YouTube. It's not that you are free to find alternatives alt-right biased channels, but rather the problem that YouTube recommendation algorithms cannot tell the difference between critical commentary pointing out the flaws and illogic of such channels and the real deal misanthropic alt-right and alt-lite channels. This has been documented by Kelly Weill https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-youtube-pulled-these-men-down-a-vortex-of-far-right-hate
(See also her interview on MR: )
While our favourites are still using YouTube we do at least have fun ways to engage. One of mine is to use the Comments. I've found it is a bit too toxic to read a lot of the YouTube comments, but sometimes you get a serious writer who an artfully make great points in a few sentences, or provide some good links worth exploring.
Another way to actively use YouTube is this little game:
- Find a likely interesting video, preferably on a topic you care about and would like to critique.
- Start watching.
- As early as possible write your own commentary in the comments before you get tot the heart of the video.
- Continue watching and at every bit you have a critique or disagreement write a comment.
- Often you find the video will answer your critique, so delete those posts you made, and leave the rest up.
I'm not sure it is healthy to use alerts to see responses to your comments. I tend to not read replies, since the odds are they are moronic and abusive, and I am usually just not in a good mood to respond to abuse. And, as most of us know, Internet comments tend to exacerbate vitriol due to the relative anonymity involved. But sometimes when you really care and are heavily invested in a topic you might be able to start a nice longish comment thread that reaches the level of a nice little dialectic. YouTube commenting nirvana.