I recently deliberately tried to make an effort to stop visiting YT to check on new videos, and started using RSS. I'm using liferea and so far it's been fantastic. Just navigate to channels you like, copy the URL, click on "New subscription" in liferea, and paste. Done.
I still get to see suggested videos whenever I watch something that comes up in liferea in an external browser, so I'm not totally disconnected from YT's recommendation engine. But I'm no longer either (a) using YT's totally in-browser notification system for new videos from channels I care about or (b) scrolling for hours looking for new videos from channels I care about.
I still get to see suggested videos whenever I watch something that comes up in liferea in an external browser, so I'm not totally disconnected from YT's recommendation engine. But I'm no longer either (a) using YT's totally in-browser notification system for new videos from channels I care about or (b) scrolling for hours looking for new videos from channels I care about.
Works well for me.