I like Legal Eagle (lawyer gives some good context for current events especially), Some More News (deep dives into social or political issues), and Plain Bagel (finance). I’m not a big YouTube person but these are literally the only three I’ll go check if they have new content.
Joan Westenberg. She just started a YouTube channel a couple days ago, but I've been subscribing to her newsletter for a few months and it's great. Give her a follow on Mastodon, too: https://mastodon.social/@Daojoan
Maggie Mae Fish Only just found this one, but seems well thought-out.
Kris Harbour Natural Building - Guy building a homestead in rural Wales. He does some cool hydropower stuff. Built his own house and workshop. He’s currently building a timber framed barn of his own design for his equipment and the animals he raises using lumber he milled on a band saw mill that he also built (and I think also designed). This stuff is all documented on his channel. Dude seems really chill and down-to-earth.
Currently, Roll for Sandwich/Adventures in Aardia and No More Jockeys. Also love me some J. Kenji López-Alt, with a bit of Henry’s Kitchen for contrast.
Asianometry - “Video essays on business, economics, and history. Sometimes about Asia, but not always.” – One of my fascination is the semiconductor industry and lithography. He tends to produce videos about said topics, and I love it.
tosh show – A breath of fresh air in the podcast scene IMO. Podcast hosted by Daniel Tosh, who has on non-celebrities (and a few moderate celebs but they are a rarity.) More ordinary people with interesting jobs come on and he talks to them and asks questions about what they do. It’s fun and interesting.
Fireship - “High-intensity ⚡ code tutorials and tech news to help you ship your app faster.” —I watch his tech news vids, Code Report, often. He does a great job of producing videos that are informative but also humorous with tech memes, related popular memes, and internet humor mixed into the tech news report.
Undecided with Matt Ferrell - “I explore how sustainable and smart technologies impact our lives. And I try to dive deeper into those topics to provide context.
Topics like electric vehicles, solar panels, and renewable energy that is meant to transition the world off of fossil fuels. Smart home technology that can make our homes not only more convenient, but safer and more accessible. Wearable technology that can track our health and save lives. Or how technology might be invading and breaking down the walls of our privacy.”
Good Work - “Fake business news.” Dan Toomey and the incredibly serious Good Work Investigative News Team plunge into the dark world of business and finance." --Their team does a great job of finding and applying witty humor to their videos. Think if NPR NewHour had a reporter but was witty, humorous, and covered ‘what the heck is going on news,’ and ‘what do they actually do’ topics and job titles.
S3 - “The stories of people working to change the world.” – Think high-tech endeavors that are pushing the envelope closer and closer to a Star Trek future.
Outside of large channels with millions of subs that now only get thousands of views, Stumpt in general for clean fun and HeroVoltsy for their pokemon fangame/rom hack content. Voltsy’s how I discovered almost every single pokemon fangame I have ever played.
Ordinary Sausage - A channel for people who wonder "could you turn X into a sausage, and if so how good would it taste?" Water? Air? Big Macs? Pickles? That and more, my friend. Pure culinary chaos, and weirdly wholesome to boot.
Joel Haver - The origin of the "semi-automated rotoscoping" animation style, a rather clever use of some existing filters, but also a genuinely funny creator, and prolific to boot.