They very much do control it and are quick to implement unwanted features in corporate interest like Web Integrity API, which has been removed again only after backlash.
It’s a music tracker + finder + social network. You can see how your taste changes over time. Personally my favorite feature is the weekly stats with a genre timeline.
If you want an online tool, cobalt.tools can rip the original youtube audio if you choose “best” format in settings -> 🎶. It’s also FOSS with no tracker/ad garbage so I can recommend it as an alternative for yt-dlp which has been mentioned already.