As someone who's (re) vanced stopped working today, one thing about using my browser instead was the inability to switch to a different app or lock my screen without pausing.

I fucking hate that shit. Made solely so they could sell it as a "bonus feature" for subscribing to their pay service.

I use qutebrowser, and even with userscripts and DNS blocking I can't for sure reliably block all of google's spyware and fingerprinting (and that's not even mentioning how bloated the default webclient is). Also google looks like it's pushing out server-side ads like twitch does, and using the browser client is playing in their ballpark.