Northernlion. He's still a cool person in my books, but the moment he started actively trying to maximize revenue is when he began to lose his appeal to me. Nick's - RockLeeSmile's - departure was the first warning bell, but I stuck with him for a long while after that.

I completely get it, though - he wants to ensure a good future for his family.

Stephen Hawes

He made really cool electronics projects and I used to be his patreon. Now he started a company that makes pick and place machines and all of his videos are exclusively about that. No more cool projects.

Alexandre Chappel

He is a very good maker and designer. He used to make videos about different interesting projects until he bought an apartment and started renovating it himself. Similarly to Stephen's, all of his videos are about that now. No more interesting projects.

TheModernRogue about the time Jason left. Just lost its charm.

Something kind of ironic, is that a lot of the YouTube channels I used to watch have at some point had some pretty terrible things come out about them, mostly after I had already stopped watching them. Boogie2988, Mini Ladd, GeePM and Rooster Teeth are some of the ones I can remember.

For Boogie and Mini Ladd, I don't remember the specific reason I stopped watching them but I do know that I stopped watching them well before all of the information about them was released.

For Rooster Teeth, there was only two things I watched them for and that was Fails of the Week, which they silently canceled and never gave a reason why, and the other was RWBY which they decided to move it from YouTube to their own website which was so terrible that the episodes would have severe buffering issues at 240p. I don't remember what the last volume was that I watched but I know I never watched everything.

For GeePM, I watched him pretty much up until the day when he tried to cancel Vinny (Vinesause). In response, people were quick to bring out information about some pretty terrible things that GeePM was doing behind the scenes. I don't think I've ever seen a YouTuber just completely vanish from the internet that quickly.

I know for sure that there are more but those are the ones I remember the most and think they are the most notable.

Used to religiously watch a guy that played the same video game I was into. He was incredibly good at it, well-known in the game's community, did how-to guides, build guides, super nice, just wanted everyone to have a good time, wanted everyone to excel in the game, good-natured, just an all-around awesome dude, etc.

Then I dunno wtf happened, but 9 years later he's become a total fucking elitist asshole who does nothing but complain about the game and the gaming studio, doesn't seem to give a shit about the little guy just trying to learn the game anymore, it's like he did a 180 in personality and now has a "git gud" mentality. He made a video of him declaring that he was leaving the game, and he did, for like a month, then promptly returned once his viewership clearly went down. I unsubscribed at that point. He became a total whinebox bitch and I lost all respect for him.

Jimmy Diresta. I'm a huge fan of makers, and the maker movement in general, and there was a time I just couldn't wait for Jimmy's next video.

Lately, I've come to feel that he no longer lets his work speak for itself. His videos used to just be really well made time lapses of him making a thing. But, for the past couple of years now, he feels the need to narrate just about everything. And there's the faintest whiff of semi-arrogant self promotion about it, which just puts me off every time.

Don't get me wrong. Talking through the making process is 100% OK with me. I watch plenty of makers that talk through their videos (Pask Makes, Wesley Treat, etc) but something has changed in Jimmy's style, and I just don't like him any more.

Shame. Arguably, Jimmy is the one that (re)ignited the movement's popularity on the internet, but it just kinda feels he's let it go to his head somehow.

Epic Meal Time and Pure Pwnage

I watched RocketBoom until suddenly they ran out of money. I don't know what happened but it seemed like they were on the up and up. They even did videos with Sesame Street. If that isn't a solid endorsement...

Then one day it was announced it was over.

Breaking points, their geopolitical analysis is out right misinformation

HAWP, DayJobOrchestra, BadLipReading, YourGrammarSucks, LTT

Also, I do not reliably watch YouTube.

Casey Neistat. Back when he was doing his daily vlog thing a lot of it was really interesting, covering him and his wife trying to make shit happen in the city as he was running and riding his powered skateboard around Manhattan. At some point his audience started drifting younger, way way younger, and I don't know if it was him or me but I just kind of lost interest. It didn't feel new anymore.

That might be me to be honest. I actually don't watch YouTube that much at all anymore, unless I'm looking for something specific. Their recommendation algorithm is garbage and it is so obviously going for raw time suck engagement that it leaves me with a bunch of unfulfilling clickbait / ragebait where I could watch it for an hour and then just want my hour back so I end up not returning. The whole platform used to be more full of interesting genuinely entertaining and educational videos, now it just feels like a giant time sink. And every other video is now some paid sponsorship or plug where the creator is basically just whoring out their own influence. Case in point, look up reviews of laser engravers. Every single one that I could find, especially of a couple major brands, the creator got the laser hardware for free. Some of them are just advertisements that reuse the manufacturer's own stock footage, and some seem more like real reviews, but for one or two brands I literally could not find one video where the creator wasn't sponsored by the laser manufacturer.

I watched Inside Gaming/Funhaus a lot but after the whole Adam Kovic thing happened it wasn't the same. The new crew of people were some cool dudes but didn't seem anywhere near as into the crude humor or constant 80's/90's movie trivia stuff and I couldn't go back to the old episodes for a couple years after knowing what I knew.

I dropped Nerd3 after he played Metal Gear Rising and called it a mindless button masher when he was just mashing buttons mindlessly and didn't even go into the movelist. There were instances before that where he didn't bother learning how to play a game before writing it off as the game being bad because he was bad and that was just the last straw.

I watched InTheLittleWood for a bit but he was just a weenie to be honest.

Can't watch kitty0706 without getting a little emotional still.

There are plenty of other channels that I just got bored of their content, or they changed their content to something I didn't gel with. There's no winning with me.

Ray William Johnson on =3. I don’t know why I stopped watching. At some point it felt “too” polished and started getting ads in it.

Ethoslab. Pretty sure he still does quality content (probably) but I just can't watch minecraft content anymore. Also, I don't even have the time to watch/play everything what I really do want.

James Stephanie Sterling after she started doing the stupid "ad spots" in videos for pogs and other memorabilia. They aren't real ads, but they were so damned obnoxious.

Lucy Pyre after she stopped doing FFXIV videos and went full on brainrotted degenerate.