Inside the ‘arms race’ between YouTube and ad blockers / Against all odds, open source hackers keep outfoxing one of the wealthiest companies.::YouTube’s dramatic content gatekeeping decisions of late have a long history behind them, and there’s an equally long history of these defenses being bypassed.
I think that’s a big part of why Google doesn’t fight (and in fact helps) the banking and streaming companies that want to lock down Android more. It’s harder to block ads if you can’t block them in the browser and can’t block them system wide via hosts file. (Yes you can use VPN + DNS, but it’s a lot more battery intensive.)