Just scraping, so they’re not bound by the API TOS. Like YouTube-DL, YT-DLP, NewPipe, etc.

Yes. And the big G doesn’t care. If they have to lie and say it’s abusive and a violation of the ToS, they’ll say it is. They’re a megacorp, while Invidious is a small open source project.

According to the GitHub thread, yes. I think that’s how all of the open source apps work - youtube-dl, NewPipe, Invidious at least. Using the API would open them up to legal trouble because you have to agree to the terms to use the API. You don’t agree to the terms when scraping.