> I have stopped subscribing, and I'm actively unsubscribing from most channels except the very small ones that post twice a year and I don't want to miss.
Don't know if you knew this, you can use RSS to get feeds of the channels you want without subscribing or even having a Google account.
I use the RSS feeds with Elfeed for Emacs which allows me to search, filter, and modify feed entries as they are fetched. Additionally, you can use an https://invidious.io instance - which also provides RSS feeds - to avoid sharing any personally identifiable info to YouTube. I've setup elfeed to provide a keystroke to watch the videos ad-free using mpv. All together, this is a much more privacy and attention respecting way of consuming videos.
Don't know if you knew this, you can use RSS to get feeds of the channels you want without subscribing or even having a Google account.
Good in-browser add-on for following, organizing etc. of RSS feeds: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/feedbroreader...