I often sit through ads when watching sports on TV because I can’t be bothered to reach for the remote to mute it. However, when I watch YouTube on my phone, I instantly mute the device and look away as soon as an ad plays. After a few seconds I look back at the device so I can hit the skip button. It always seems like a waste of bandwidth for them to play ads to me, but I assume my behavior isn’t in the majority.
You can use newpipe, youtube vanced or youtube in a browser with adblock turned ON.
For iOS you can sideload https://github.com/qnblackcat/uYouPlus or Cercube or something.