What generally appeals to many people from the yonder of YouTube was how it was overall more wholesome, simple, and friendly then it is today. The comment section for the most part wasn't filled with that much toxicity, stupid unoriginal comments didn't plague every single video, and people discussed the actual content of the video rather than going completely off topic. It (probably?) went downhill after users were forced to integrate Google+ with their YouTube accounts in order to comment. Even though I may be exaggerating how good YouTube was, I certainly don't remember it being as bad as it was today.
We also had content creators that would make videos just for the pure fun or pleasure of doing so, not so they can shove many advertisements in a ten minute video and earn as much money as possible. Don't get me started with those clickbait titles and thumbnails, such as the generic "Prank in the Hood (Gone Wrong) (Almost Died), the huge arrow pointing to an obvious object, etc, etc. What used to be a hobby for many has become a literal full time job. But with the current disarray that YouTube is in right now due to their Copyright System and BS demonetization, I'm not sure how long that can last. Sure, there are sponsorships and Patreon donations from people, but would it be enough without an actual real life job? There are many small channels today of course that still upload videos for the reasons I mentioned earlier in this paragraph, but you may have to dig deeper for those. I'm not claiming that all big channels are necessarily bad. In fact, a lot of them are actually high quality and have excellent content. But the ones that are bad would obviously clickbait, upload bad or low quality content, and make every single video ten minutes. And heck, I even think that some channels that upload all ten minute videos can be good.
Of course, don't forget the viral videos back then such as Double Rainbow, Numa Numa, Chocolate Rain, Charlie Bit Her Finger, Nyan Cat, and so much more I either don't know or can't name right now.
