I switched over since I heard it was more privacy friendly than YouTube and have been using the platform for a while without issues, but this cookie banner just popped up. You can opt-out of things like "Access precise geolocation data" but a lot of other information is still shared by third parties and not opt-outable.
It seems "Reject All" is the correct choice here, but I'm not sure if it is the best choice for browser users who have to constantly log back into their accounts.
I would not recommend investing any time or money into the platform, as it will inevitably crash and burn as the owners walk away flush with cash while everyone else is left holding the bag.
Peertube is not ideal, but it is currently the only alternative that isn't tied to a shady crypto scheme.
There are no other big platforms. There was a very extensive discussion about it recently. Making a service like YouTube is extremely expensive and not even very profitable. YouTube exists because Google has the resources to maintain it and it's too important for everyone to shut it down.
You can either use YouTube with a ton of privacy hardening (using a private browser or a VPN) or host videos on your own website.
If u simply want a better yt frontend then there is tubular wich is a sponsor block fork of newpipe with some extras. Then on desktop u can use any of the various nvidious frontends.
I use tubular cos it works with peertube so ive started to replace the few yters that do publish for it with the peertube version and uts all part of thr same feed.
You can upload to PeerTube. I use GrayJay so I can follow PeerTube people and YouTube people and follow the creator no matter where they move platforms.
PeerTube is not great but it's not empty either. You just have to find an instance that federates with lots of other instances. Due to file size and bandwidth required, this is one thing that most people self-host, so it's very fragmented.
I created my own and just set it to auto-follow other instances.
Be careful... Don't just click "Reject All." There's a category called "Legitimate Interest" that will still be enabled.
It was meant to be a way for websites to collect relevant data for adjusting content to your interests, but it's been so loosely defined in legal requirements that literally any advertiser could pull your personal data through that category and use it however they want. This legal loophole is how websites continue to collect data and build profiles on you without violating the law. And clicking "Reject All" won't disable anything in that category.
As much as it sucks, you still need to review all categories and manually change your advertising settings, then click "save preferences" (or however it's specifically worded) instead of just clicking "Reject All."
They tried to make it with "respecting privacy" and all that shit that they never really cared about yo to begin with and was just bullshit to try to get people to switch over. Now, they're going the other route where they're just another data mining platform like YouTube. Use Tubular. It's a frontend for YouTube without the bullshit. You just can't sign in and comment. Or you can use GrayJay. It connects to several platforms at once, like YouTube, rumble, Odessy....etc
LBRY also uses a crypto back end, and LBRY coin (their crypto) is what odysee used before being bought out by Arweave. I wouldn't recommend either, personally.