Try Yattee. Piped client for iOS. You do have to do weird setup because the app needs to pretend to not be a Piped client. Otherwise, Piped or Invidious website.
kzhe
Consider Piped, Invidious, etc. Yes you can't log in, but on Piped you can create a Piped account and on mobile use Yattee (iOS) or Libretube (Android). No recommendations on home screen, but subscriptions feed and recommendations per video.
They eventually fixed it
Entirely true. Gen Z is not "tech smart."
Clipious for Invidious based, but it's not as good as Libretube Newpipe for Piped, but it's direct and reveals your IP to YT and has bad UI Libretube for Piped, but it's a bit buggy at times.
The bot also chose one specific piped instance
Use the browser extension for redirect. It also lets you choose piped instances
I'm looking on Mobilism for stuff and all the forum comments make the releases seem suspicious
You 99% won't brick it, I guarantee you. Graphene's install is really easy. You press a few buttons on a website and never touch a terminal, aside from if you're on GNOME. As for price, I got a used Pixel 4a 5g for 100 and newer ones won't be as expensive as the things you might've gone for. Try a used Pixel 6a? (Graphene doesn't extend software support)
As in the transformer god?
Or use Yattee and Piped (no need jailbreak)