delete the app. Open your browser. Download an ad-blocker. Add the youtube homepage to whatever a phone’s desktop is called. Open a video, minimize the browser, and play audio from your notifications taskbar.
No more ads. No more needing the app to remain open to play audio.
Also you can buy Huawei phones from Newegg. The P50 is shiney if anyone wants to know.
I can’t imagine there is any suit like that, as “piped” applications would be against one or another Google terms of service (another hegemonic corporate construct). If not the YouTube ToS then the Google Play/Android ToS. You can’t get piped apps on the Play store, you have to sideload a third party app store like F-Droid.
I think the burger problem is that there isn’t a genuine competitor to YouTube in most of the world. So Google can unilaterally decide what people see and how they should see it, and ostensible anti-trust consumer protections can be entirely ignored given the power Google has (wealth and imperial connections).