And for once I don't mind it.
As you can see from the two screenshots above, the first taken in incognito since my YouTube account has already converted to the new format, and the second shot in my regular account with the new format.
The way it used to be, comments were under the video title and description with suggested videos inhabiting the right side of the screen. Now those features have been flipped.
From what I've read, this is only happening to a few select accounts but it appears that a lot of the comments seem to indicate an overwhelming dislike of the new format. And I got to say at first I was in their camp. I was missing the old format so much that I was looking for a way to go back but apparently YouTube doesn't make that available. I did find a workaround based on an article I read that instructed how to use a script loading browser extension which would revert the layout, but I found that it seems to have caused a problem when scrolling from the middle of the page and even the video corners, which had been rounded sometime last year, we're reverted back to the 90° angle corners.
These things alone didn't make me rethink my decision entirely, it would only be after more side by side comparisons that I really realized that I didn't hate the new look. In fact, when it comes to reading comments, it's actually quite handy as now you no longer have to to read comments thus pushing the video out of view, you can read comments to your heart's delight while still watching the video.
So yeah YouTube, I can dig it. Of course, I don't believe for a minute they did this change to make the UI more user friendly. Surely the change was simply because now folks could read through comments and not miss any in-video advertisements. Can't fool me.