Is there a decent alternative to Youtube yet? It would make a killing if it had even a little bit better UX
Sadly no. And we’re not gonna see an alternative any time soon. Noone has the server capacity (or 18 years of community building). The only ones who could maybe build something to match their servers would be other similarly shitty companies anyway. Like Microsoft, Amazon or Facebook.
The only reason youtube still exists with no viable alternative (for the populace) is the sheer amount of content thats uploaded on the platform and creators already being there as well as the difficulty/cost of sustaining a service that stores and serves video. There are so many platforms that do youtube’s job as well if not much better than it but that will never rival it because youtube simply has all the content and content creators.
EDIT: imo odysee and peertube are the best alternatives we currently have but they will sadly never make youtube fear a single bit for their market share
if you’re talking about alternative ui/ux, you could try Piped/Invidious instances. Usually I use piped.kavin.rocks or yewtu.be to visit youtube on desktop browser. It basically youtube without ads and other bloats, also privacy-friendly. Or as other stated, you could try NewPipe or Libretube on smartphone. Keep in mind that all of these alternatives wont provide you google login functionality. These apps only store your search history locally on your device. It takes a bit of time to get used to not get fed by recommendation algorithm and not doing any mindless scrolling