I think there's a pretty big misunderstanding about what, exactly, Premium funds. I get that ads are annoying, but if you're not paying for the service and you're blocking ads, you're not just hurting Youtube/Google, you're hurting content creators.
It's my understanding that, per viewer, Premium pays content creators more than ad impressions. Remember, that's per viewer. For even the very large channels, their Youtube revenue is primarily ads, but it's because their Premium viewers are a small portion of their total viewers.
Make your own choices. I'm not going to tell you what to do. Just don't play mental gymnastics over it and understand what you are actually doing when you make the decision to deprive funding "out of principle".
Yea, we can call folks greedy left right and centre, but the "all content must be free" brigade gets a bit tiring after a while. Servers need to be built and powered, content needs to get moved around the world at lightning speeds and content creators need a slice.
If you like the content you watch? Pay for it. You have two choices with YT: ads or Premium (or sub to a channel but I'd rather support them off YT).
There are things like Nebula and Floatplane, but largely I haven't seen a compelling reason to go there, and YT Premium for my family is pretty good value for money IMHO.
I would love to support creators on other platforms where it's monetization first. My issue is I primarily consume this content on my living room TV through an AppleTV 4K, so I rely on apps being available for that to access that content. I think Nebula is available. Floatplane does not have an app (though I think there's a third party app to access Floatplane content, but not sure if I can trust it).
The other alternative platforms have the same problem. A few youtubers I subscribe to encourage joining them on their other platforms, such as Odysee. Again, not available on my TV.
In the model I would support, I would pay creators for their content. If the content creator would like to use youtube as their distribution platform, that's fine, but then it's up to the creator to pay Youtube as their distributor. I'm sure there's plenty of reasons "why that would never work", but don't chastise others for not paying Youtube.
So it's not "content creators need a slice". Content creators need to get paid, and distributors need a slice.
>you're not just hurting Youtube/Google, you're hurting content creators.
Well, yes. That's the point. We can't do much about Google as a company, but if we hurt the creators badly enough to make YouTube no longer viable, then they move to a different platform.
Do you know why content creators use Youtube despite it being a fairly hostile place for creators? It gets views. Odysee doesn't get views. Vimeo doesn't get views. Youtube is your best chance of getting discovered and finding success.
If you want to drive content creators to other platforms, you should stop using Youtube and giving them views. That's how it's done.
You're not entitled to the content nor the platform for free.
It's my understanding that, per viewer, Premium pays content creators more than ad impressions. Remember, that's per viewer. For even the very large channels, their Youtube revenue is primarily ads, but it's because their Premium viewers are a small portion of their total viewers.
Make your own choices. I'm not going to tell you what to do. Just don't play mental gymnastics over it and understand what you are actually doing when you make the decision to deprive funding "out of principle".