I still remember when it was as simple as a request to /get_video?video_id=XXXXXXXX with possibly a &fmt=YY parameter.

Great fuckings to those at YT, I wonder if they ever feel bad for what they're doing or they are just happy to get $$$.

For me the principle issue with Youtube (for many years was copyright overreach, yeah ok safe harbor, but you can't tell me that they couldn't have done a better job) has been censorship/demonetization which is effectively censorship

Everything from that follows, the entire philosophy of the product

It makes me wonder if all of Google is like this