I’ve tried a bunch of Piped links over the last week, none seem to work for me. Are they working for anyone?
I just tried this one. Spun for a full minute and I gave up. I would say 80% of alternative frontends for popular services haven’t worked for me traditionally, yet people swear by them. It’s really puzzling to me. Like you and I can’t be the only person for whom services like these don’t work.
I’ve never had one work and no longer even try.
Doesn’t work for me either. I usually just copy the YouTube url into newpipe on my phone if I really want to watch it. I do wish I could have it do that automatically

You can have links open in NewPipe by setting it in Android’s settings:

Settings -> Apps -> All apps -> NewPipe -> Open by default

And then set things up in there