If you use yt-dlp through tor it will be worse: 403 almost every request. I don't know if youtube treats tor exit nodes different or it's because other people also uses that address and generates a strange behavior which youtube flags.

What's works best for me is using my own residential ip and waiting like an hour between downloads. Throttling doesn't seem to help.

Regarding how to torify, you can install tor with apt and it will act like a proxy. Then you can use yt-dlp proxy settings

I reset my ip in the router interface if they do that and that resolves it

Start a tor daemon with SOCKS5 proxy:

$ tor socksport 9050

Then run yt-dlp through it:

$ yt-dlp --proxy socks5://127.0.0.1:9050 <your arguments>

as to "how" it's as simple as torify yt-dlp https://youtu.be/etc. I don't think it'll help, though. maybe try some alternative frontend like Freetube that allows you to download videos interactively.

I've noticed that *not using* youtube for a while gets you ublocked, too. Which is only good, if you think about it. Most often (even if not always), your days will get a bit healthier, and the lifting of the block is only a bonus when you really need that rare video, too.

I haven't found other solutions or tricks; nor have I tried after I've realised that this one works. I take it as a "hint" from google, to get away from the screen (YT) for a few days.

oh hey, I had that issue recently where YouTube thought I was a bot and yt-dlp gave me an error "sign in to confirm you're not a bot". This issue is actually mentioned on the yt-dlp FAQ and they said to use a proof of origin token provider (POT provider). After setting up the recommended one made by Brainicism, I only had to run it once, open a video with the POT provider in the background and since then YouTube doesn't believe I'm a bot anymore. Now yt-dlp works without using the POT provider again.

Not sure for how long, sometimes YouTube still denies me videos on the first try but usually it works after a re-try.

PS.: On the FAQ it is also mentioned to not use your YouTube account token with yt-dlp, else YouTube might associate your account with a bot and ban it.