I just use yt-dlp (YTDLnis on Android, which has a great UI that makes it quite YouTube-like). Downloading instead of streaming (read: downloading then automatically deleting) is so much better.

1. It's all offline play, so I can use my favorite players like VLC. Also, no buffering (after the initial download, of course).

2. I can do anything I want to the video: make edits, splice ads out, extract audio, generate subtitles or dubs, etc.

3. It saves Google server costs! Well, comparing to streaming the same video from them multiple times with adblock on, at least.