The problem I kept running into was that YouTube is full of "algorithm traps". I usually want to spend as little time on the platform as possible, even though there’s a lot of useful content I want to consume for learning.
Existing RSS readers didn’t really solve this for me because they aren’t designed to queue up and consume video well. YouTube’s "Watch Later" list also didn’t work — videos don’t automatically disappear after watching, and since it lives on YouTube, you're still constantly exposed to recommendations.
So I built what I actually wanted: a dedicated YouTube RSS reader and viewer with a proper watch list.
The goal is to make it easy to decide what to watch (and what not to), and when watching, stay completely isolated from the recommendation feed.
I built the first version in about 12 days using Rails 8.
I built IDWIW — short for "I Decide What I Watch" — an algorithm-free YouTube viewer.
You can try it here: https://get.idwiw.app/
The problem I kept running into was that YouTube is full of "algorithm traps". I usually want to spend as little time on the platform as possible, even though there’s a lot of useful content I want to consume for learning.
Existing RSS readers didn’t really solve this for me because they aren’t designed to queue up and consume video well. YouTube’s "Watch Later" list also didn’t work — videos don’t automatically disappear after watching, and since it lives on YouTube, you're still constantly exposed to recommendations.
So I built what I actually wanted: a dedicated YouTube RSS reader and viewer with a proper watch list.
The goal is to make it easy to decide what to watch (and what not to), and when watching, stay completely isolated from the recommendation feed.
I built the first version in about 12 days using Rails 8.
If you're curious about how it was built, I wrote a detailed breakdown here: https://medium.com/@kei178/from-idea-to-product-in-12-days-w...
The app is free to try. I'd love feedback — especially whether this solves a problem you personally have, and if anything feels confusing or missing.
Happy to answer any questions, technical or otherwise!