It's not just any random user. That's the mobile DDG browser that's being targeted. I guess user agents aren't allowed anymore, only spy agents that tattle on the user.
Using own smaller, simpler client instead of yt-dlp, I tested the videoId mentioned in that page. No problems with IOS user agent.
NewPipe still working so far.
FYI - you can't be sure which side of the A/B test you are on.
I had interpreted the news as affecting all users of the other tools. Now found https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe/issues/11139 with very few comments so I don't get the impression it's affecting many NewPipe users at present.
Newpipe is amazing, just keeps on going through a lot of Google's attempts to block it.