I see so many posts complaining about ads but never enough posts about using an Ad Blocker. These take a minute to setup, cost nothing, and don't require you to spend time maintaining them. Let's make the internet/YouTube usable again!
As another option if you're using a VPN service it may have an add blocker built in as well - mine does and you're rightit makes things so much better not having ads!
Plus one for a pihole. Bonus points if you also change your preferred DNS servers from your ISP to one's that also include ad blocking and malicious sites as well. Do this on your router and change the DHCP settings and switch DNS to one of the IPs you pick (Google it to find a list of a bunch to pick from).
Sadly, I don't try to spread the word about this. When people complain, I just say "yeah, sure does suck". If adbloxkers get too mainstream they'll become enough of an issue to start getting shut down. We're seeing it already on YouTube.