Yeah it's absurd to me how much people bitch about YouTube advertising and don't pay. To me, either you don't watch enough YouTube for the complaints to be warranted, or you do watch a lot, and you're just torturing yourself to save $15 and blaming YouTube for your choice. It's like complaining about a Quarter Pounder "not coming with cheese" and constantly trying to steal cheese, when you could just pay the dollar and get cheese every time.

I don't log in to YouTube because I don't want to participate in the Google ecosystem to that extent. That precludes paying for Premium. If they don't want me to watch videos, then they should gate them behind the login they already provide.

Or they just don't want to support a dodgy advertising company.