I honestly have no opinion either way but since I like arguing, here ya go.
scratch that, I have one opinion. I know what to watch youtube, don't bring me to the what to watch page.
JUST GO STRAIGHT TO MY SUBSCRIPTION FEED
sheesh
anyways
I think this is just people trying to find something to complain about. People would probably like to say MLP is getting worse because of Twilicorn (which is still a term I dislike since "corn" constitutes the third syllable in both "unicorn" and "alicorn"), but that dead horse has been beaten to a pulp. If videos are buffering too much it's because your internet is slow, the site, at least from what I can see, hasn't been taking any more time to buffer videos of the same resolution and length given the same internet speed on the recieving end. I think this particular point is just videos getting longer and higher res while your internet connection stays the same (or an outdated NIC in your PC). The site has actually been made less complicated by the layout changes in my opinion, and anybody who had never seen youtube before would most likely have an easier time learning the various functions of youtube in the newer layouts rather than older ones. I think this is more likely a complaint that people have already learned the old layouts and now have to relearn the new ones, but the new ones are similar enough that that's not really a valid argument either. Advertisements aren't really that bad, and keep in mind that on most videos there are skip buttons for the ads. Not to mention, advertisements are keeping some really good videos from getting removed based on copyrighted content. if copyrighted content is found in a video, I believe the copyright owner can decide whether to have the video removed or monetize it, meaning they would receive the ad view money from the video rather than the original uploader. Also, has anybody even seen mobile youtube recently? It's been far improved since its first release and is now far more smartphone friendly. In fact, I think most of the full youtube layout changes are to keep regular youtube in sync control, function, feature, and design wise with the phone version, therefore making the process of using youtube more streamlined.
Most of what you said in this particular paragraph in my opinion refers to a factor of youtube that can't become truly worse unless Youtube staff start modifying views on videos to make certain channels artificially popular, which I haven't seen yet. Frankly if a channel becomes popular, it means a lot of people want to watch that channel's videos, meaning overall it can't really harm Youtube since channels with no reason to be popular in the eye of the majority will no longer maintain popularity. I honestly think this system is still about the best way of going about things, except for maybe having a way of submitting videos without releasing your channel name so that high subscriber channels and low subscriber channels have an equal chance, then being able to release the channel name at a later date.
Youtube has always been like that, you merely hadn't been to that part of youtube yet. If you think rick rolls are becoming MORE common in 2013... they aren't. They've been on decline for a while from what I can see.