the real problem is that youtube has decided to just put normal recommendations on the search result page in the place where search results should go. I use the extension 'unhook' with the setting 'Hide Inapt Search Results' to remove that misfeature.
this feature was presumably somebody's baby and I'd really like to read their writeup where they unironically exalt its virtues so I can try to gauge how far up their ass their head is.