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YouTube supports Smart TVs, games consoles and other platforms where updating is slow or nearly impossible. Its API is stable for that reason.

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these platforms don't support youtube via a programmatic interface like this (and other libraries). They basically embed videos so the "API" is an http request for the traget url.

YT constantly changes how it masks access to the underlying resources with JS updates that break these libraries. The most frequent updates are to fix this.

Why do third party apps that utilize it constantly break then?

Please explain.

pure speculation: youtube app on those platforms is just an embedded webview (or otherwise allows arbitrary code execution).

yes - they don't generally access the underlying meta & media directly; they use the well established, stable and YT-prefered method of embeding a video. This doesn't work if you want direct file access to a specific resolution, or format, or audio only for example.

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