I infrequently use youtube (maybe 2-3 videos a month) and because the search sucks so badly, I never search using youtube, but rather with Kagi or DDG video search.
What I do know is that I can plug in terms and filters (typically dates / video length) to turn up something relevant most of the time.
Given that most of my searches are for lecture / podcast type material, that tends to work reasonably well for me.
Recent/current major news is of course a shitshow, though it can occasionally be useful. Increasingly I turn to major journalism channels for that information simply because the chumming around no-name submissions is so abysmally bad.