Comment by zelphirkalt

Probably just the typical nefarious activities of YouTube. Either "accidentally" driving users to switch browsers, or experimenting with circumventing ad blockers, or negligence in testing, or who knows what.

If they want the "Google has no browser monopoly!" claim, then they should be obligated to make their services work perfectly with the alternative, instead of subtly scheming and manipulating people.

One thing you can do is to use an invidious instance. Those don't support live streams and shorts, but at least you don't have to deal with the atrocious normal YouTube frontend.