@paulororke I share some of your general frustrations. Using this phone has been a rollercoaster (I may have thrown a couple of phones in the past, luckily never this one). There are always broken or disfunctional things but I’ve always been able to work through them one by one thanks to the forum community and a lot of time and patience. I’m known to family, friends and colleagues as “the one with the weird phone that can’t run apps” by now.
About copy-paste: I’m no longer able to select (and therefore copy) text in text (SMS) messages, but elsewhere I’m usually using the keyboard as well. Have a look at this post to avoid needing to switch to “terminal” layout all the time. Having arrow keys available is very nice, by the way, to avoid frustration with precise cursor positioning.
For YouTube I use FreeTube (Flatpak). If someone gives you a link you can simply paste it into the FreeTube search bar.
Good luck and remember, we’re here to help.