I strive to do this myself. The algorithm is too finely-tuned to sapping my attention 
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I disabled the YouTube app on my phone, so it now opens on the website instead. I’ve changed my bookmark to point to the Subscriptions page. And I’ve installed extensions to remove shorts entirely, disable auto-translations, skip sponsor sections, and start at a higher play speed.
I’m still addicted, though.
I am working at doing this using a program called ytdlp-sub which downloads the videos locally. I then serve them using jellyfin.
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Sharing here a link to a video from a youtuber that I follow. His channel has a number of well-informed histories of the Semiconductor Industry. He does his research.
This one compares the trajectories of Kodak and Fujifilm.
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More oriented to people photos -
Its always good to know what motivates people and how and why they picked up a camera in the first place.
As an aside, beware Baileys finger…
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Striking pics even as they feel voyeuristic to watch.
Since this us about Youtube:
As I’ve just found out, since v4, it requires a subscription (10 USD per year) to cover development costs. It does get rid of YT’s most annoying features, though, so maybe it’s worth it - or maybe you can live with an older version.
I don’t mind paying for YouTube, we have a family subscription to get rid of the ads, but I do hate not being able to get rid of stuff (shorts, stupid recommendations etc) that I don’t want.
Too bad, that there is no more “cheap camera challenge”. The old videos were hilarious and also very interesting to watch (but imho degraded at some point. Imho it is better to stop at some point rather than doing the same things over and over…)
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I use browser extensions to hide Shorts of all kinds, skip sponsored sections, and default to a higher playback speed. And like you, I pay to remove ads from YouTube.
The extensions even work in Firefox mobile.
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I’ve started doing this. I felt guilty at first because I’ve often criticized my kids’ generation for having such short attention spans and losing the art of patience. But I must admit that 1.25x speed shaves valuable minutes off and is barely noticeable! I don’t have tons of time, so 10-min videos is what I aim for most of the time.
However, depending on the editing style and skills, it can sometimes be a bit too jarring when sped up.
It depends. On some channels, the narration is already sped up, not necessarily by speaking fast, but by using tools that remove all pauses. This is a characteristic of quite a few channels that show just how easy it is to do x with some tool/application/other product they are ‘reviewing’ or showcasing.
I default to 1.75x. Only few videos warrant lower speeds. My brain is now well used to this speed and it doesn’t sound strange any more. When I’m just searching for a piece of information, up to 2.5x is usually still intelligible. Strangely, higher speeds only work with headphones for me. They resolve to gibberish on speakers.
Maybe i should take that as a sign to reduce the noise in my life, and unsubscribe from content that is too empty to even warrant close listening.
I do podcasts at various speeds. As high as 2.2x if i just want a general idea of the theme, as low as 1.2 if it’s complex or I want to catch all the details. Side effect is when i play them at normal speed for whatever reason, they sound like they’ve just done a massive bong hit.
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Personally on my channel, I remove a lot of the pauses in my narration. I don’t use any automated tools though. I just do it manually. I try and make my narration and vidoes as concise as possible and I fine tune every space by hand, in addition to manually tuning unusually loud S sounds and removing clicks. Takes about an hour to process five minutes of audio but that really forces me to be extra concise about my videos!
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It’s quite a discipline. I only did a bit of radio in the past but now edit some 90 second video scripts for news items and it takes more time to get them down than longer pieces.
Then there’s this famous misquote.
https://folklore.usc.edu/a-famous-mark-twain-quote-which-is-in-fact-a-misquote/
I always figured that a slow-spoken, information-dense lecture is best for video recordings. Viewers can speed up if they’re bored or recapping, but ideally I’d like to make the density of information high enough that they’re fully engaged on first watch.
That’s how I tried to structure the tutorial videos in my programming course at university, anyway.
Where I see many a YouTube video failing is the information density. Many presenters seem to have a knack for tightly cramming thirty seconds of content into a ten-minute video, to serve the algorithm more than the viewers.
But that’s easy to say, having produced only three of those. It must be a lot of work, producing these videos at a regular schedule.
I frequently just skip the first three minutes, which is just filler time. I once watched a YT video with a guy demonstrating how to restring a weed wacker and he spent half the time explaining why you need to restring a week wacker.
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I’ve checked the videos, and you speak nice and slow, with no empty time (pauses), but you don’t sound artificial.
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Very nice of you to say! Audio is one of my hobbies so it’s good to hear someone likes it 
Also, on a random note, thanks for making the effort to incorporate AgX into DT. I’ve been using it and it’s great!!!
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So, by unlocking the skill to make everyone in normal life sound completely baked, going to the shops and doing your groceries has become much more fun I take it?