Yeah they are, I noticed it get really, really bad this week. It’s an awful experience. But they’ll leave my browser before my adblocker does.
The thing is, their anti-adblocking measures are still less unpleasant than actually watching ads.
I’ve noticed occasional “buffering” before playback starts through the past week or so. Takes like ten seconds before the video starts playing. Hasn’t been worse than that so far, knock on wood.
Youtube feels like an impossible service to actually compete with, whether through the enormous and complicated setup required or amassing creators/users. It’s basically a monopoly and it sucks. One will just have to resist Google’s bullshit using whatever means available for as long as possible.
Peertube is working on breaking the monopoly. I try to use it more.
