Well.... not really.

- Why does seemingly every channel I follow, whether it be JCS Criminal Psychology or The 8-bit Guy, have to mention the YouTube Algorithm, Content ID, Copyright Strikes, or Community Guidelines? If almost every creator is struggling and not just the fringe and edgy, you've screwed up big time.

- Removal of the dislike count. Extremely unpopular decision. Also YouTube's API is still answering dislike counts making extensions to bring it back still function, despite over a year later, almost implying it was about keeping up appearances. Now... who could be so worried about keeping up appearances...

- Completely blowing up YouTube Rewind into an increasingly corporate affair that quickly started heading downhill until the absolute train wreck of 2018, where it became the most disliked video in YouTube history at that point. Rewind never recovered and YouTube has now given up trying to engage with the community in such a way.

- Taking a 5-second ad at the beginning of her tenure, and leaving it with multiple, constant, unskippable, rampant advertising; and a subscription plan that started at $10/mo. turning into $23/mo. for equivalent service (5 users).

- Launched YouTube Kids to provide a curated experience for younger individuals, then decided to make it run on automation. Which then screwed up big time and started serving kids extremely inappropriate content causing a brief congressional inquiry. Then YouTube settled as guilty to violating COPAA, and decided to shift all the responsibility on the creators by disabling comments and other features on any video that may possibly be seen by kids.

Some "success"...

FWIW I think there are more or less two very distinct experiences/use cycles of YouTube. There is the one where people get to it from outside (mostly Google Search) and the one where people get to it from within YouTube itself. As someone who falls into the casual Google search category the latter class of serious YouTube user is just alien to me. The 2018 Rewind video was pretty bonkers stupid to me, but, to me, it also looks more or less the same as the 2017 rewind video. How you feel about YouTube is probably a function of how you use it.

> If almost every creator is struggling and not just the fringe and edgy, you've screwed up big time.

Whatever algorithm YouTube uses professional uploaders will try to maximize their views, which goes by acting as the algorithm requires. In a competitive environment there is a inherent struggle.