I agree with pretty much everything. I’m a millennial who grew up with YouTube before it was Google’s, back when “related videos” were basically your only discovery tool, and that was enough. I’d add: kill the comments entirely, and pair whatever frontend you use with an adblocker plus SponsorBlock.

Lately I came across this Android app. It does local algorithmic recommendations, but everything stays on your device so you can wipe and restart it whenever you want. I’ve used NewPipe and its forks (last one being PipePipe) for years, and I’ve been testing Flow.

To each their own, I guess, but having some discovery without Google’s finger in it is a nice thing imho.

Great choice! The MT7621 is one of the few targets that support hardware NAT offloading. Consider it if you’re buying an OpenWrt router for a high-bandwidth connection. You could also consider buying OpenWrt’s reference router, the OpenWrt One, since some of the proceeds go toward supporting the project.