We had some talk in this community about the enshitification of Youtube and the interface and search algorithm becoming lower quality. I too struggled with this issue for quite some time now. My solution since a couple of months is to ditch the official interface of Youtube entirely and use independantly developed frontend alternatives. It's basically like a complete redesign of the website that ditches all the shit stuff, meaning all ads, trackers, cookies or recommendation algorhithms etc, but it still allows you to watch all of youtubes content. The most straightforward way to do this is to install FreeTube on your computer (runs on any OS). It's a lightweight, open-source and free / donation based Youtube client. Check the official website here: https://freetubeapp.io/ This app also has the option to filter out certain content (e.g. Youtube Shorts, blacklisted Channels etc.) and it even has a distraction free mode, that you can use to hide distracting elements of the UI. You can also subscribe to channels right from the app without an account. Since it is more lightweight, it's also much faster than the Youtube Website most of the time. And it adds a download button to every video. There is also a way to set up and automatic redirect so that any Youtube URL you open is automatically opened in Freetube. Here is a guide:
https://github.com/FreeTubeApp/FreeTube?tab=readme-ov-file#browser-extensions It gets buggy with age restricted content, sometimes. Other than that, the only downside I found to this is that you now have to find another way to support your favourite Youtubers since they don't get ad revenue by you now. But it's easy nowadays to send most people a couple of dollars on patreon. Bonus Tip 1:
If you want to take extra care about your privacy and you are not afraid to get nerdy, there is also a project called Invidious (which FreeTube is based on), that you can self host so you have maximum control where your data goes to. Link here: https://invidious.io/ 
If you want to use an alternative Youtube Frontend on your phone, a publically hosted Invidious instance it the way to go! Here is a list of such instances: https://redirect.invidious.io/ Bonus Tip 2:
There are alternative frontends for many websites, that are enshitified. Find the ones to suit your needs for making your online experiance more bareable, it's really worth the time. Here's a pretty comprehensive list: https://libredirect.github.io/