With the larger platforms, the more you use the platform the more specific the feed or recommendations become. What you describe sounds indeed like the surface

With the larger platforms, the more you use the platform the more specific the feed or recommendations become. What you describe sounds indeed like the surface level feed that a new or logged out account would get. Ignore all feeds and search for specific things, such as collision detection. Then you will come across genuinely good channels which you can subscribe to. The feed will then no longer show those crappy superficial popular topics. However the YouTube Shorts has an insanely addictive nature, I regret every second spent in that feature. To contrast, the rest of youtube contains so much useful educational content. I really learned a lot thanks to these videos. In the last two years I stopped watching regular videos and started watching Shorts, which I find truly regrettable.