YT is huge, and there is plenty of good stuff. You just need to subscribe to good channels that are not so easy to find. And block the clickbait channels when they appear.
I wish we could collectively move over to some decentralized alternative. Even if we make sure to disable the bad parts, relying on these few actors that have such revenue optimized and enshitification-prone business models does not sit right.
Although decentralization by itself does probably not protect from this trap in the long run.
Nothing is really stopping us the consumer. But given that YouTube seems to be the only one in its "medium" (compared to Twitch and TikTok being different formats) that pays creators, it's hard to ask all of them to impact their potential livelihoods.
Nebula as a premium service seems to be the best in terms of paying creators and keeping non-perverse incentives. But Nebula is for very specific kinds of content.