If you're using a native YouTube app, you've already lost the battle.

Obviously. Which belies your "just do this...". You may as well say "just watch dvds". An exactly equally effective solution.

iSponsorBlockTV running in docker on a system on the network can remote skip ads for all yt apps that it have been added to its monitoring. works great for appletv. But nothing is as good as SmartTube on androidtv.