so compartmentalize it for just watching youtube. make a new profile on your privacy-friendly web browser just for that, load that profile up with all the annoyance blocking things you need and leave the main daily-driver profile free from google.
and don't use any of google's services on mobile if you can
a few months ago, youtube implemented AI-based age assurance where to prove you're an adult if the AI thought you were underage, you could either
dox yourself by uploading an ID that they absolutely WILL keep on file forever and will inevitably leak when they get hacked in the future
add a credit card to your account so they can trick you into paying for youtube premium when you accidentally click on something in the future
or 3. if your account is old enough and has gotten continuous consistent use then they'll just go with that
The media is evil and didn't give the story any attention
old google accounts that have been regularly used for their entire existence are whitelisted by youtube's age assurance, because if the google account is beyond like...10 years old and has been getting continuous use the entire time then there's no way it belongs to a kid anymore
that's why I kind of regret deleting my older Gmail addresses, the one I use to watch youtube is still pretty old over 15 years. but I had one google account that would be 19 years old by now
"last year" doesn't really do it justice They had tons of data breaches last year, the really bad one was after some places forced people to upload their IDs
One time when I was a kid I left one of my dresser drawers open on purpose just because I knew my big fluffy Maine Coone would take a cat nap in there, sure enough, I was right, when I got back from school she was in there
"No sir, I'm off the clock now, Unless you're paying overtime I'll see you tomorrow"