[walthamstow]

Similarly, I use Ublock Origin to remove basically every element of the site except the search bar, subscriptions and the video player itself.

[duskwuff]

There's also some YouTube-specific extensions like SponsorBlock and DeArrow [1] which specialize in removing distractions from YouTube content - not just the UI.

[1]: https://sponsor.ajay.app/ ; https://dearrow.ajay.app/