Earlier quoted context omitted.
For some of us, YouTube is part of our creative and mindful pursuits. It either drives our interests (much like reading a magazine about specialized topics would, in the past), or explains how to do something, or simply builds a community of like minded people all over the world. I find the argument of "how much you don't need in your life" not very compelling. On one hand, we "need" very little: health, food, shelte…
Passively consuming content is not the same as reading a magazine or a book. Agreed that anyone can fill their own free time with whatever they want. But youtube is just junk food for the mind, packaged as stuff that interests you. It’s conveniently split to increase ad revenue, uses clickbait to drive engagement, and all the techniques developed on TV the past 80 years to keep us glued in front of the screen. Youtub…
This is demonstrably false.
There's no such thing as "YouTube stuff", there's thousands of people uploading videos, some interesting to you, some not, some junk, some very in-depth, some garbage, some very thoughtful -- Sturgeon's Law applies. There are music videos, science videos, history videos, hobby videos, videos analyzing everything under the sun (e.g. the amazing Every Frame A Painting), etc.
I don't know which videos you watch, but mine aren't "junk food".