VLC can also play youtube URLs directly, although buffering can be annoying.
There's also a Python package called "whitey" which provides an ncurses interface for searching youtube, and sending videos to e.g. mplayer or youtube-dl.
If you want to "subscribe" without needing an account, every youtube channel provides an RSS feed (look in the <head> of the page source).
I legitimately did not know this, thanks for the knowledge share! Can it follow playlist s of videos?
There's a few video game streamers whose commentary and remarks are so funny and well written I find myself listening to them more like a podcast than watching the video, so I'm often queuing up playlists and having the background noise while doing house chores and the like
Also, mpv can use youtube-dl if both are installed to play YouTube playlists, e.g.:
mpv https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5DfJnFBZwz8xd37MA6I16oJ
It is an audio player with the youtube-list-as-playlist feature. In my experience, it generally delivers a better sound quality of the same videos than youtube. Copy the url (make sure it's /?list=<id>). Hit Cmd + U, paste, <Enter>. Then optionally download the extension for using keyboard buttons[1] and control playback from there.
Or you can always use `youtube-dl -ix /?list=` then open the resulting files with .opus extension with your favorite player.
[0]: https://vox.rocks/mac-music-player/old-versions [1]: https://vox.rocks/mac-music-player/control-extension-downloa... Disclaimers: No commercial interests. Just a happy user.
Agreed, here's a list of sites it supports: https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/docs/supported...