You could try getting a Chromebook and installing whatever distro you want on there? I know it doesn’t avoid the pre-installed spyware, but at least it’s free so you’re not loosing money paying for a license. And Chromebooks these days are made in a wide range from very inexpensive to sorta-premium.

Yeah, honestly that’s the main blocker for me. For all of the hate it gets, I had the YouTube algorithm pretty well-tuned to what I liked.

Wish there was something like freetube that would still preserve views/ suggestions.

Same, privacy concerns are huge for me. Also, there’s no way I’m paying $18.99 a month for it, that’s comically expensive. It’s the same as Netflix’s top tier plan, and at least Netflix has the expense of producing their own content to (attempt) to justify that cost.