A lot of heat here, but there are two separate issues getting conflated:

Attribution mechanism: YouTube's public "view" appears to come from a client endpoint distinct from ad/monetization events. EasyList recently started blocking on of those endpoints that will naturally drop public views from desktop users with blockers, even if the video still streams. That's not a shadow change by YouTube so much as an external filter change.

Metric design: Having one ambiguous "view" counter that's used for everything (social proof, discovery, sponsor decks) guarantees drama when any attribution channel breaks.

If YouTube wants less speculation and paranoia on this issue, the fix isn’t "evade EasyList", but to separate metrics. I think plays should be public and keep monetized views in the Studio.

Source: I've done lots of testing on skipvids.com whilst using ad blockers and I can confirm they can effect view count