"A sizable minority of users is fed up with invasive advertising and actively seek ways to block ads whenever possible"
In the past 12 months or perhaps longer I have run a number of browsers,
Brave, Chromium, Surf something, Midori, Librewolf, Firefox, and few others I really cannot remember the names of
My point?
In exactly NONE of these browsers have I encountered any problem/drama/hindrance when running anything on youtube.
Which then begs the question....what are the minority doing with their browsers to attract unwanted attention from Google ?
Google has a point. It costs real money to run and maintain such a site as Youtube.
Again, a minority see fit to screw with the site in some way that upsets the life out of Google.
The majority of members here on Linux.org more than likely access Youtube with an add blocker enabled without incurring their wrath. Myself included.