Yeah, I mean Brave seems to give me all the features premium does, at least the ones I want. I have a Google account specifically for YouTube watching with which I’ve trained/brute-force-hidden-trash to the point the algorithm 99% of the time gives me what I’m interested in, so it’s pretty simple to pop open the browser and put something on to listen to on a drive.
Newpipe doesn’t use the algorithm (besides the feed for popular but you don’t really contribute to it though) which is actually one of the reasons I like it because it allows me to cut down on my watch time (though I also tend to listen much more than watch nowadays).
It does have downloads too, admittedly I never use this feature but it is neat because you can choose the format and quality which goes above even premium’s choices for quality.
3rd party solutions for these corporate run apps truly are amazing!