[KarimDaghari]

Honestly, for me, the hardest one to replace is YouTube. I think the best I can do is to create an account specifically for it + use firefox containers.

[redvenom]

I think there is also a difference between lock in and just using a service. If your primary email is Gmail, it's hard to switch and it's worse than YouTube. With YouTube, if Google decides to lock you out, you can more easily move to PeerTube or another service. I also recommend that if you create content for YouTube, you also upload it elsewhere.

[jimmaswell]

Switching from gmail and forwarding to your new address sounds easy unless you insist on deleting it and changing every account referencing the old email.

[beached_whale]

Your final point is the pertinent one. Without content elsewhere that is interesting and easy to find, there will be no alternatives.

[baxtr]

YouTube UX has gotten really bad. I don’t know where to start. Auto continue eg or the fact that you can’t continue watching in the background on your smartphone unless you pay.

But I agree it can’t be replaced currently

[8note]

The broken back button has to be the worst thing on the YouTube UXthough jumping video ads out of the comments section is also a huge pain though I can see how it's more profitable

[jimmaswell]

Background watching has suddenly started working for me on Firefox on Android recently.

[kgwxd]

Do you post content there or just subscribe and/or comment? If just sub/comment, you can use an RSS reader to "subscribe" to channels and give up commenting.

[thehermit]

Same, I'm rid of Google except for Youtube. There are just too many creators I follow there that I really enjoy to give it up. A few upload their videos to Patreon (usually for early access) and I think if I ever manage to ditch Youtube that is how it's going to happen.

[ttt0]

mpv + youtube-dl and RSS as replacement for subscriptions.