To me, Youtube and YT music are the same services in different shells, maybe the algorithm uses both (maybe it includes activites from other google products as well) to suggest them on the platform.
Good to see something like this, but you can solve some of the problems within youtube like autoplay, you can disable it. As for the recommendations on homepage you can clear youtube history and pause it in yours accounts activity center¹, for hiding video suggestions, personally I use theatre mode(so that i need to scroll) and extension to disable it. Similarly I hide the YouTube shorts using the extension.
Also, the landing page starts with a signup :)
1. The downside is that you also lose your YouTube Music history.
This year turned out to be bad due to burnout, hoping 2026 will be better for everyone!