I think it is one of the large motivating factors for them. It has never worked and creators complained about it. Mobile is a rapidly growing, if not all ready, the primary platform for views.
I think they have an alternative for mobile, the white cards in the corner? I know I have heard EEVBlog Dave talk about it a few times, the mobile vs desktop specifically related to annotations. He is even where I heard about this new change too.
I would like to take this opportonity to promote such concept as “Users” which basically means video viewers and guys writing comments
I know its a bit late and its difficult to make any changes at this point, but I have never really cared about any of these creators complain fake news which have been written like its my problem