I love watching Lets Plays and HCBailly is the best let's player. His quality has only gone up over the years and his consistent upload schedule leaves nothing to be desired. He's under rated and deserves 3 million subs.

Technology Connections

Tom Scott

hbomberguy

CGP Grey

Tom Scott is a beacon of YouTube quality.

He never had a phase where all of his videos were 10:00 for the algorithm, he never jumps on topical shit for clicks, he just talks about genuinely interesting shit, and has gotten to do so on a higher and higher budget.

He has diversified, and has other channels that interface with other YouTubers in gameshow and stuff. But it's all still legit content.

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

And a deep cut from 9 years ago. Same kind of content. Slightly lower quality but... Guys been doing this kind of "hey I think this is neat let me tell you about it" for a decade, without becoming a dingbat.

You get the idea.

Primitive Technology

He's mastered the bronze age and is making progress on the iron age, all by himself.

Gaming

• EthosLab - most authentic Minecraft YouTuber around. No trash clickbait, cringeworthy attempts to appeal to children, ad spam, etc. Just a dude chilling out and playing Minecraft.

• Battle(non)sense - Tests various input lag reduction tech + strategies. Input Lag: Low DPI vs High DPI - turns out increasing your DPI can significantly reduce input lag! AMD AntiLag+ vs Nvidia Reflex - turns out not only does AMD's solution trigger anti-cheat, but it also offen increases system latency.

• Marblr - High quality analysis of weird game behavior. Mostly Overwatch for now. Overwatch: The Effectiveness of Shield Spinning

• People Make Games - Videos about games and the gaming industry. Highly accessible to folks not familiar with the industry. Making Sense of VR Chat, the Metaverse People Actually Like

• NoClip - Crowd funded feature length video game documentaries. Making of Horizon Zero Dawn

Makers

• ColinFurze - builds crazy stuff and does an amazing job of it! Currently building an underground garage at his house that connects to his underground tunnel system.

• I Did a Thing - Australian man with a great sense of humor. Makes ridiculous stuff. Giant Beyblade destroys stuff

...more in Honytawk's comment below

Science + Technology

• Applied Science - In depth videos about random science-y things this dude finds interesting. No clickbait, just an excited dude talking about a project he tried.

• Atomic Frontier - A lot like Tom Scott. He's also a rare case where the video is more interesting than the title/thumbnail. Generally focused on science-y topics + has shockingly high production value considering the dude seems to be an overworked college student.

• NileRed/NileBlue - Crazy in depth chemistry videos. Personally find NileBlue more entertaining as he tends to explore things he's not that great at.

• Practical Engineering - Explanations of various civil engineering concepts.

Other

• Krazam - Legendary comedy channel focused on software engineering related topics. Most famous video - microservices.

• You Suck At Cooking - Short videos presenting recipes in an entertaining way.

• Studio Binder ; High quality videos about all things movie/video production. Owned by a movie production software company so you're gonna see ads for it in every video but SponsorBlock gets rid of that with no issues. Ultimate Guide to Camera Movement - Every Technique Explained

Technology Connections!

CAPTAIN DISILLUSION

Ze Frank

Seems like he’s been doing his thing for the entire existence of the internet. Silly little flash animations and games in the early 2000’s and now his ‘true facts’ of animals videos. Seems to keep true to his own style, ever evolving as it may be, but always similar- and maybe thats what I find comforting- he’s been there for most of the 20+ years I’ve been ‘surfin the web’, as the kids like to say.

LGR.

Primative Technology. A dude out in the bush building houses and tools out of mud, sticks, and rocks without speaking a word.

• Some More News (Last Week Tonight-like political commentary)
• AngryTurtle (fallout 76 content)
• videogamedunkey (gaming/humor)
• Yahtzee Croshaw (game reviews/rants)
• Wendover Productions (random interesting education and air travel gameshows)
• Practical Engineering (how the world around you is built)
• Technology Connections (deep dives into engineering everyday gizmos)
• Tom Scott (interesting tech/education)
• RealLifeLore (explains geopolitics)
• Internet Historian (amusing yarns, discussions, and stories)
• LegalEagle (law)
• Kurzgesagt (explains scientific concepts, lots of what if scenarios, animated birds)
• Tasting History with Max Millar (historical cooking in a modern kitchen)
• Let's Game it Out (dude who breaks games in the most amusing way possible)
• My Name Is Andong (cooking)
• Chef Jean-Pierre (cooking)
• Economics Explained (economics)
• Matthew Berman (explores the latest AI/LLM tech)

• The Bread Circus
  • They go through the Star Wars movies from a book lore perspective, point out flaws in the writing and lore-breaking, and offer suggestions on how the sequels could have been handled differently. They did The Last Jedi, and I really enjoyed it. They also have some cool videos on podracing, ships, and guns.
• Defunctland
  • History of Disney rides, takes the culture of the time into consideration, the video on queues is a must-watch, imo.
• Draw Like a Sir
  • Really solid drawing tutorials that aren't very complicated, takes the time to break down high-level concepts into simple exercises. Overall a really fun channel to watch, even if you're not into drawing.
• Fredrik Knudson
  • Long, deep-dive videos into internet history/culture. Rare uploads, but a banger every time.
• James Lee
  • Newgrounds-era animator with amazing compositing techniques and a very unique animation style where he inserts himself into his videos as a very animated caricature of himself.
• Lemmino
  • Like the History Channel but without the fluff. Cool topics, very nice animations, high production, high-quality content.
• MattKC
  • Known for a Lego Island decompilation project. Also does retro console repair from time to time — very fun watch.
• Paper Will
  • Rare uploads. but interesting video essay topics. High quality and a nice watch during lunch.
• Pecos Hank
  • A storm chaser who is Reed Timmer's ying to his yang. Very chill, documentary-quality footage featuring himself playing guitar and talking about the beauty and power of nature. You've probably seen his footage on the Weather Channel!
• Technology Connections
  • Great deep dives into random technology, old and new. The video on the popcorn button on microwaves is really good (I think that may be on his second channel?)

Primitive Technology

Low volume (not even 1 video a month), high quality, highly entertaining.

Beware of the copycats, though.

Tom Scott. Only gotten better with time.

Lemmino creates amazing documentaries about a wide variety of topics (DB Cooper, JFK Assassination, Jack the Ripper). He uploads very infrequently, but it's totally worth it when he does.

Barely Sociable is similar in style and uploads high quality pieces about various mysterious occurrences.

Drachinifel uploads frequent, well researched content about naval history from the age of sail to the 1950s.

Our Own Devices is a very small channel that feels similar to Technology Connections (another excellent channel). He uploads content about the history and inner workings of old devices of all sorts.

Throttle House is the best car channel on YouTube.

Jason Cammisa's Revelations series on the Hagerty channel has really good deep dives into the histories of some important cars.

Aging Wheels/Under Dunn are excellent car and/or wood project channels. Chickens make frequent appearances too.

Mentour Pilot has excellent analysis of airline crashes.

Jay Foreman uploads funny and informative content about maps (Map Men) and tidbits about the history of London.

Cathode Ray Dude uploads deep dives into weird computers, computer peripherals, and old cameras. I've watched his half hour video about modems at least 5 times.

Mustard uploads excellent content about crazy ideas in transportation (like the Soviet love affair with the ekranoplan).

3blue1brown

Makes great visual math videos. Without him I would have never studied electronics.

Practical Engineering - in depth presentations of civil engineering feats, concepts, problems, solutions

Joe Scott - just simple, entertaining discussions of interesting topics

Philosophy Tube - longer format, intensely well-cited presentations on philosophy related to current events (with theatrical costumes!)

Ryan Hall - who knew that a weather forecast could be so fun? Regularly updated weather forecasts for the entire United States with detailed coverage and livestreams of events like tornado outbreaks, hurricanes, and large snowstorms. With charity drives to provide supplies to people on the ground

PBS Spacetime, PBS Eons, all the PBS channels really

Plainly Difficult - consistent quality, often hilarious presentations of various disasters. I particularly like his entire series on radiological accidents, often involving lost radioactive sources that random members of the public stumble onto, which is terrifying.

How to Cook That (Ann Reardon)

Her debunking videos and 200 year-old recipes are very entertaining.

Also Adam Ragusea (my husband, but he doesn't know that)

Tom Scott

Curious Droid - lots of sci fi, technology content.

WaterlineStories - all sorts of nautical/diving disasters narrated by a South African chap with a lot of experience.

Qxir - Irish guy with a lot of weird stories told in stick figure form.

Plainly Difficult - a lot of disasters frequently nuclear.

Nile Red is still fun - and a nice dude. Chemistry

Vince Vintage is hilarious, great editing (like internet historian but not a jerk)

Also my homeboy Video Game Dunkey.

Dreading is good(sort of successor to JCS), very sober and tasteful host discussing true crime.

Consumer Tech: mkbhd, LTT, MrMobile, Dave2D, JerryRigEverything, UrAvgConsumer, GamersNexus

Geeky Tech: TechnoTim, ServeTheHome, Explaining Computers, Level1Techs, Jeff Geerling, , Low Spec Gamer, Modern Vintage Gamer, Wolfgangs Channel, Network Chuck, Project Farm, Tech Rules

Smart Home: Everything Smart Home, The Hook Up, Smart Home Solver, Paul Hibbert, Reed's Smart Home, NotEnoughTech

Popular science: Veritasium, Kurzgesagt, Smarter Every Day, Hank Green

Science: Cleo Abram, Physics Girl, Nile Red/Blue, Computerphile, NumberPhile, Minutephysics, The SciShow, PeriodicVideos, Sixty Symbols, Scott Manley, The Action Lab, 3blue1brown, Kyle Hill, Steve Mould, Fermilab, PBS Space Time

Engineering: Practical Engineering, B1M, Coby Explanes, engineerguy, Technical Connections, Simone Giertz

Entertainment with some science/engineering sparkled in: Colin furze, Mark Robert, Slow Mo Guys, Johnny Harris, TheBackyardScientist

Entertainment: CGP Grey, Tom Scott, Max Fosh, Lockpicking Lawyer, Legal Eagle, Kitboga, Not Just Bikes, Cheddar

Docutainment: Cold Fusion, Wendover Productions/Half as Interesting, Anything with Simon Whistler (Megaprojects, etc)

Programming: Fireship, The Primeagen, Tech world with Nana, freCodeCamp, Ben Eater, Jake Wright, Dreams of Code, mCoding

Electronics: Andreas Spiess, GreatScott!, Tall Paul Tech, EEV

Chess: Anna Cramling, Gotham Chess, Hikaru

Cars: Carwow, Out of Spec Reviews, TeslaBjorn, Throttle House, Engineering Explained, autoTrader, Donut, Hagerty, RSEV

Travel: HONEST GUIDE (the Prague guy), Pack Hacker, SV Delos, Tim Traveller, Trek Trendy

History: the fat electrician, historigraph, history matters,

Woodworking: Shaun Boyd, Blacktail Studio, Foureyes furniture

Late Night: Colbert, Meyers, Kimmel, Daily Show, Last Week Tonight

Russia/Ukraine: LazerPig, 1420 (Daniil Orain), Perun (edited to add)

If you speak German: HausbauHelden, FelixBa, Lohnt sich das, Finanzfluss, Next Move, Autogefühl, Smarthome yourself, Jonas Winkler, Held der Steine

Haven't seen Summoning Salt mentioned yet. He does great videos on the history of speed running a video game.

An example video would be Super Mario Bros: The Human Limit where the difference between a tool assisted speed run and what a human is capable is discussed. And how Super Mario Bros has an interesting mechanic allowing humans to be imperfect but still able to tie a perfectly executed speed run done using essentially a script of commands.

There's plenty more, but here's a few of mine:

RedLetterMedia - Got pretty big on YouTube about 15 years back for their review of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, where they made an actual, honest critique of why the film (and later the other prequel films) didn't really work on their own merits and hid it inside a 1.5-hour skit about an elderly serial killer. They're, uh... they're not for everyone, but I like them. Also, Macaulay Caulkin as a recurring guest star. Worth your time.
Technology Connections - Did you ever want to know why ceiling fans start at max power when you turn them on? Because I already knew before I clicked on the video and I still watched the whole damn thing. I swear this person could make ANYTHING sound interesting, no matter how dry.
They've been mentioned already but Second Wind - I mean, Yahtzee Croshaw pretty much picked up his fanbase and moved it here when his bosses at The Escapist made the boneheaded move to fire, uh.. his boss? I think? I don't watch a whole lot of the other stuff, but I haven't had any complaints about anything of theirs I've watched.
Project Farm - This dude legit goes out with his own money, buys like 8 different items in the same category (mainly tools, though his most recent video is on space heaters) and subjects them all to fairly rigorous testing to see which one is the best for the money. If I'm looking to buy something, I'll check and see if Project Farm has a video on it first.
LGR (Lazy Game Reviews) - I think someone already mentioned this as well, but I thought I'd bring it up too. The channel covers more than just games now and just covers all kinds of (mainly 80s/90s) computer tech. Plus, Clint's a good dude.
Colin Furze - He's a bit extra but he started making Wolverine claws in his little garage workshop and now he's building a "secret" tunnel under his house. Following this man's videos are wild. He basically says "what if (crazy idea)" and then just... does it.

edit: omg how did I forget DankPods? Of course he has like five channels now. He's got a masters in music, he made a living playing jazz drums, he started a dumb YouTube channel about fixing iPods, and now he has a warehouse where he plays drums and games and fixes cars and all kinds of shit. Wade is great.

Scrolling through my subscribes, here are some of the ones mostly widely interesting I figure. In no particular order:

Civvie11- Retro gaming enthusiast.

Beware The Qu- Lots of speculative evolution content.

Big red 40TECH- Battletech lore guy.

BobbyBroccoli- Long videos about science scandals.

Mandaloregaming- Long form game reviews.

Seth Skorkowsky- Videos about TTRPG reviews and how to run TTRPGs.

Warlockracy- Russian video game reviewer with a bent to older games and weird Russian obscure mods.

Forgotten Weapons- Man on a life's quest to collect French ammunition.

Red Letter Media- Movie reviews and such.

Wargamer Fritz- Battletech tabletop tactics.

ReligionForBreakfast- Scholar who talks about religious history topics.

The Tank Museum- Tanks.

The Chieftain- Tanks.

Paper Skies- Channel on strange aviation stories, focus on Soviet military aviation.

Quinn's Ideas- Scifi review channel. Huge Dune nerd.

Olden Demon- Oldhammer channel. Talks about 2e and retells old 2e official battle reports.

oboeshoesgames- Like Dunkey but still funny.

Minisodes- Plays Oldhammer 2e in modern day and paints retro minis.

Grim Beard- Goth that reviews usually more obscure games.

Billiam- Watches and reviews a lot of trash TV.

Ancient Americas- History channel about ancient American (north, central, and south) history.

I'm subscribed to a lot of painting, DIY, instructional, and such channels which I find good but are very niche.

Kinda late to the party here but I'll share a couple of my favorites:

Melodysheep - video essays about science and science fiction with absurdly high quality animations and production value

Mustard - same as above, except about interesting and/or unusual real vehicles

Casually Explained - just a dude with a great sense of humor and crude artwork explaining random things to you

Sam O'Nella Academy - same as above, except covering very specific and much weirder topics

Biblaridion - his usual content is about conlangs (don't ask, I don't know either) but his ongoing Alien Biospheres series about speculative evolution is simply amazing

TierZoo - highly entertaining videos about animals and zoology, except it's all a videogame

LowSpecGamer - as the name implies, he used to make videos about making AAA games run on potato systems but has since pivoted into making (great) mini docs about the history of videogames and technology

Cyriak - he doesn't post often but the dude has been making the same kind of technically impressive and often disturbing animations for over 15 years now

Just look up what creators are on nebula. Almost all of them creat high quality cpntent.

Summoning Salt.

Not many people can make a 2 hr video about the world record progression of a game I've never heard of and have me absolutely invested in it all the way through.

Dude makes a video every 3-6months but god I love them. If anything they've improved over the years as his style has been refined and the videos got longer.

Etho

Smarter Every Day

Mark Rober

Tested with Adam Savage

Atomic Frontier

Captain Disillusion

Answers with Joe

I’m late but a couple I didn’t see mentioned:

BeardMeetsFood - funny guy doing eating challenges, never thought I could like this kind of content, and the only one I watch in this category

Itchy Boots - Amazing travel videos from a Dutch girl riding her motorcycle through remote places on all continents. Very positive meetings with people all over the earth to give you back hope for humanity.

Nikolai Schirmer - Ridiculously high quality alpine skiing videos, mostly from Norway. Fantastic story telling and nature combined with too steep skiing. Shouldn’t be possible to get this quality for free.

Expedition Evans - very enjoyable videos of sailboat life for a couple and their two dogs.

Beau Miles - best story teller I know of. Adventurer that mostly make videos about local projects where he’s doing something that involves running very long while philosophizing about interesting topics.

Harry Mack - the most insane freestyle rapper ever, usually makes content on the spot for people on the street or online.

Sheena Melwani - Whenever I need a laugh. Her husband Trid is hilarious. Short videos of them laughing and joking basically.

Iron Chef Dad - wholesome videos with his son, for example making gourmet out of fast food.

Galdoc’s Tutorials - great DevBlog content from making a Factorio mod. Development, debugging, designing, Blender. Fairly technical. Great voice.

Stuff Made Here - great engineering channel, makes crazy contraptions like a moving basket hoop you’ll always hit, a hair cutting robot, auto-aiming bow etc.

ashens is still making that quality brown sofa content 17 years later.