[yasoob]

I am assuming it would completely prevent ads (so no need to figure out how to filter/block them) as the name of this field suggests that it might be used by YouTube to figure out if someone has a premium subscription or not. Toggling this field would not have led the author to the later protobuf rabbit hole as there would have been no need for it.

From personal experience, we programmers/hackers sometimes like to make things more complicated than they need to be just for the fun of it (and learning experience too!).

[867-5309]

I highly doubt that. it is still only a client-side parameter. the server will still know whether you have paid or not

it's a bit like inspecting source on a banking website, altering the balance html, then expecting the displayed value to reflect actual account funds