Update 1/16 - Adblock has informed BleepingComputer that its engineers fixed the problem and released ABP 3.22.1 and AB 5.17.1 on the Opera and Edge extension stores. The same versions are currently in review on the Mozilla and Chrome add-on stores, and should be made available soon.
It may depend on location but I get awful long buffering times with piped.
Yeah, it could be. I host my own instance of Piped, and it feels like pretty much the same experience as if I were browsing YT directly.