Otoh, you also have Odysee and PeerTube to move your own content to.

Well the problem for google is that Youtube MUST be accessible to almost any internet user in the world - that's a key reason why it's so ubiquitous.

The reason this cat and mouse game has lasted as long as it has in the first place is because any method that is currently being quashed has a solution lying in another user agent that youtube can't kill.

If one day YT sets a "minimum requirements" page on their website to access their content, they've immediately ceded market share to the next upstart. Imagine if they broke viewing for all of the countless cheap (and e-waste) phones, tablets, low end IOT devices, "smart TVs", and so on because they place a requirement that the device cannot meet. Those users will not throw away their hardware - they'll migrate to the first available alternative way to watch content.

As long as YT caters to the lowest common denominator (Their business model essentially binds them to do so), there will always be a software/hardware environment that these tools can spoof. The moment that stops being the case, people look for other options.

A similar analogy would be how Microsoft handled the windows 11 requirements - the strict requirements locking out years upon years of hardware has resulted in a substantial amount of users finding workarounds for their machines (like windows 10 IOT LTSC), or to even jump to linux entirely. They abandoned the entry level users, so entry level users are abandoning them.

what is the endgame of this cat and mouse game?

Same as usual: the mouse loses unless it assembles and unionizes with other mouses and they bring in a guillotine.

They turn it into an app-only platform just like with many PRC-based apps. Literally, some of those platforms doesn't even have a web or desktop mode.

I tried using Baidu Maps web to look at my old neighborhood (I was born in mainland China) for nostalgia, and the site repeatedly automatically attempts to download the .apk like every tap I make on the site. Wtf lol. The site probably detected the useragent and keeps nagging me about their app.

I tried browsing a random popular online store to see what it's like for curiosity (天猫), but it asked for a sign in. Like wut? Even Amazon, Ebay, Bestbuy doesn't do that. PRC is actually just late stage cyberpunk capitalism.

This is gonna be the future for every big-corp stuff. App only, real ID and phone number verification required. Probably even scan your face.

We need a Meshtastic-based "internet" to actually decouple from big corps have control our infrastructure to have real freedom.

The end game is to take full control. If Google implements Widevine on YT, and especially Widevine L1, that'll be their Hiroshima bomb for both third-party front-ends and downloaders, and even non-Android, ChromeOS, Apple, or Windows platforms as far as OS goes and non-Chrome or Edge browsers.

Like, say Google implemented Widevine L1 on YT streams at some point in the future, it would be entirely feasible that you'd be looking at Netflix-style lockdowns to Edge on Win11, or even Chrome on Win11 for that matter, with both SecureBoot and TPM2 in place, if you wanted to watch YT on PC in the future, else you'd be limited to Rokus to watch it.

Someone give it to me straight, what is the endgame of this cat and mouse game?

The internet gets turned into packetized cable tv with bonus panopticon features.

Your new monitor likely has DRM features built in that are already being utilized by Netflix and others. Youtube is next on the line

Maybe total DRM enforcement, and clients without widevine only get garbage quality. That'd end yt-dlp for youtube