I don't mind Youtube making a profile of me and recommending similar things. But then again I use youtube to watch channels I'm subscribed to and maybe once a week I watch the recommended stuff.
but for Youtube its:
1. go to login page.
2. enter username, hit enter.
3. enter password, hit enter.
4. at the 2FA page hunt for the “other method” option and click it.
5. select “authenticate with Google Authenticator” (i.e. OTP).
6. enter TOTP code, hit enter
7. select either “use this method in the future” or “no” — they don’t take effect because no cookies.
sure, it’s self-inflicted on behalf of me not persisting cookies. but a 7 step login process? get real.
3rd party clients like this solve that. in theory i could also whitelist youtube cookies to be specifically persisted, but figuring out how to do that would be a lot more troublesome than just using a 3rd party client.