Why I deleted YouTube from my devices and stopped using the service

YouTube has become worse for me over the last few years both as a distraction (all on me) and becoming a hive of negativity, humble brags, encouraging people to waste money and fake theories. It was a real eye opener when I used it signed out for a week but worse than that my own suggestions are also polluted with these same videos and awful thumbnails.

YouTube’s algorithm for encouraging this kind of content has gotten out of hand and I don’t want to be part of it. As I’ve written before I’m glad I stopped growing my channel about 7 years ago now I’ve seen what content YouTube encourages you to create. The way to grow is to be extreme!

I thought that I have my subscriptions that I mostly enjoy and as long as I only use it on our TV watching only those things I think I’ll be ok but when the app defaults to recommend and the first thing I see is “how I blew £2000 at (insert store name here)” I’d had enough. The content I watch I can get in podcast form so I’ve just subscribed to the podcast feed in Overcast instead.

I’ve now deleted it off all of my iOS devices, unsubscribed to all channels and deleted my account from our LG TV.

Lee Peterson @LJPUK