Given that ad block users are usually tech savvy and have been around the net a while: We already know the URL and can detect Rick Rolls before clicking on shit.
Freetube has been failing consistently on all my desktops lately. None of the instances on the main site work. Can you verify it's till working and maybe DM me the instance you're using?
Tenor's has a guide that shows you how to make a full video link into a Shorts style link to not have ads at the beginning: https://media.tenor.com/x8v1oNUOmg4AAAAM
Same in UK for Sky. You have to be a Sky TV customer (paying) to use the Android or iOS Sky Go app and it still makes you watch adverts without skipping.
Tenor had a good video guide of how to skip ads for short videos on YouTube with link changes. I used it to Rick Roll a friend once, not sure if it still works, though: https://media.tenor.com/x8v1oNUOmg4AAAAM
There was a vociferous but somehow under the radar outcry about this back in 2018 and an incredibly simple solution was widely suggested: demonetize the video.
However, the highly viewed video is a significant source of royalty revenue for Mr. Astley, which, as he well argued at the time in a series of tweets, is only just compensation for the way his image has been turned into a joke literally hundreds of millions of times now.
Mr. Astley implored YT not to bow to pressure and demonetize the video. YT famously replied “don’t worry, we’re never going to give you up, never going to let you down.”
Dude... my kid will never get to experience this. I didn't even know this existed. Every other one of the links in here was waiting for me to hit play, too.