Yep. W/o yt-dlp the whole thing is pretty meaningless.
I guess the RSS side does provide some value standalone. I used to as read/unread pointers before I started actively archiving, so there was value in that. Beyond posting a couple of private videos for sharing purposes I've never actually used a Youtube account for any of the community engagement stuff (like / subscribe / bleeeeech). My feed reader served the "subscribe" function fine (which is why I assume Google would love to kill the RSS feeds).
I guess the RSS side does provide some value standalone. I used to as read/unread pointers before I started actively archiving, so there was value in that. Beyond posting a couple of private videos for sharing purposes I've never actually used a Youtube account for any of the community engagement stuff (like / subscribe / bleeeeech). My feed reader served the "subscribe" function fine (which is why I assume Google would love to kill the RSS feeds).