For me the opposite: chrome was making an entrance on account of supporting WebMIDI and I gave them the benefit of the doubt for a bit but this is the bit that did it for me and besides some compatibility testing FF all the way for me.

Google is already receiving plenty of money, if they promoted youtube as a commons they should maintain it as a commons. This bait-and-switch crap has gone more than far enough.

Remember, not all that long ago their mantra was 'we don't care about ad blockers because it is only such a small percentage'. Look now.

I hope so :).

I just see it, in the current context of layoff, as them wanting/needing more money and hoping blocker either leave (and stop costing them bandwidth) or switch to YT Premium.

I do believe that the worsening experience on YT could be a win by making platform I want to support such as nebula more attractive. Or that it could backfire with a global adblock adoption making the current ad economy less viable.

I'm just unsure if chrome/YT is not already too entrenched and that people won't use ad blocker or switch.

Google has plenty of money, but it's never enough and so you get this kind of ridiculously hostile activity. I can't even watch my own videos without being bombarded by ads. That wasn't the case when I uploaded it so in my opinion that's bait-and-switch. They can pull these stunts on newly uploaded works with new T&C but to retroactively claim editorial control over the page where the videos appear is just abuse of power. If they were about to go out of business on account of how youtube is such a terrible loss leader it might garner some sympathy but as it is it is just a Google power play and a money grab to me.

Anecdotally, I just made the switch to FF from Chrome. And my only complaint is that Google Earth is practically unusable. Other than that, I love the customization and have no difference from Chrome. Extension support is just as good.