I used to self-host an Invidious instance on my home server for personal use, but at some point it stopped working and I haven't tried it again. I might give it another try along with Piped.
But as bad as YT is, by this point I have trained "The Algorithm" well enough that the home feed suggestions are pretty good at pointing me to stuff I actually would watch (mainly tech, science and engineering topics), I think none of the alternative frontend does suggestions, right?
I'll try these fixes, thanks!