It's absolutely insane to me how bad the user experience is with video nowadays, even video that's not encumbered by DRM or complex JavaScript clients.
Actually at this point the only thing that makes the good old aMule a bit less inconvenient to my own expectations are
- it's missing snippet previews
- it doesn't have as many resources on every topic out there.
Sometimes I can’t even click on the front page, sometimes when I open a video it refuses to play.
I don’t know what’s up, but it works in chrome.
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.