You can block YouTube ads in Safari on iOS/iPadOS. There are also alternative players you can sideload with AltStore or other methods, all without jailbreaking.

Can you share some methods? I have Pi-Hole but of course that doesnt work.

AdGuard or other Safari extensions for adblocking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdGuard

The discussion is specifically talking about watching on TVs. Those (usually) don’t have ad blockers natively. You can of course block outside of the platform.

Get a TV stick and put Smarttubenext on it, or put it on to the TV directly if possible.

web Youtube started preliminary work on muxing video on server - js player no longer fetches two separate standard video & audio sources, it gets binary encoded bundle instead. They will at some point hard switch to this method of injecting ads.

> There are multiple ways to get around ads on every other platform.

What about an LG TV, which is where I mostly watch YouTube? Think the platform is WebOS unless I'm mistaken.

Rooting your LG TV allows you to install homebrew apps. If you have a device that's at least a couple of years old and has not had its firmware updated, try https://rootmy.tv/

You can either root it or enable developer mode to install an ad-free youtube.

Adblockers/no-adblockers is missing the point. YT and other internet media WILL eventually be mostly ads just like TV became. And they WILL figure out ways to prevent blocking, in fact there are likely very smart and talented people on HN will devote their knowledge and expertise to achieve these ends in exchange for fat salaries. There will also be lobbying of course and I foresee that ad-skipping will eventually be criminalized (harshly) to ensure compliance. There is no escaping these fates. The only hope is a brand new form of media and the brief window of ad-escape it grants before it too is overrun and conquered by ads.

You can absolutely get rid of ads on an iOS device. You just need to use YouTube in safari.