Thats true some times when i watch 4 K footage i get kicked back to 1080p, and in on a 80/70 mbit cable connection thats always stable in DL but UL can drop a lot in peak hours.
I assume its youtube cuz when i have gotten those kickbacks to 1080p i have run speedtest at once, and my speed have always been okay.
And the general backbone here is good too, Apple among others is building data centers here.
My own videos always play good, but some times if i want to play a really old one its like youtube have to dig it out first and it can take a little while.
I assume youtube have some sort of algorithm to have the popular videos lead faster than all the little stuff with like 27 views in 3 years.