I’ve used most available services, but discontinued one after another along with promises that a better user experience will be provided with reduced content and removed functionality with the slight price hike. YouTube was my first and last video service I paid for, only Spotify remains on the borderline.
I’d also like to plug ReVanced. You do have to provide your own copy of the YouTube APK (easily downloadable from APKMirror), but it allows you to install multiple patches into the app, including Return YouTube Dislike, SponsorBlock, and other stuff. It allows background play and blocks ads, too. (You can see the list of available patches here.)
The problem I have with ReVanced is that it sometimes doesn’t register videos as watched or doesn’t save the watch progress. It happens pretty randomly too, one week everything works correctly then the other week nothing I watch gets saved
Huh. The only time I had that issue was when my adblocker app was blocking a specific domain that the YouTube app needed unblocked to save watch history. I unblocked the domain, and I don’t think I’ve had that problem since. I had to unblock
s.youtube.com/api/stats/watchtime, though the internet says it’s changed toyoutube.com/api/stats/watchtimein more recent years.