I haven’t signed into YouTube in maybe 5 or 6 months, cookies get deleted every time I shut down the browser, and I keep my subscriptions in FreeTube. But some things, like foreign language videos that need automatic caption translation, I still watch in YouTube.

Even so, I’ve only encountered a blank page like this maybe three times in all those months. And the blankness doesn’t last: as soon as I opened a specific video URL – any video URL – it fills right back up again with the same old shit, except now it’s ALL related to that one single video I opened.

This is no big deal. Open up any video and you still get sidebar recommendations. I use Blocktube to ensure I don’t see channels I don’t want, so it doesn’t just fill back up with Mr. Beast and Fox News, I continue to use FreeTube for everything else, and all is well.