> I want ad-free viewing on any youtube client in my house, and I do not want to maintain infrastructure to allow that.

Firefox + Adblock/uBlock works on mobile, and desktop. If your TV blocks firefox, buy a dongle or mini-pc and use that. And way better for your privacy anyway. And a mini-pc gives you tons more capabilities like emulators etc. You literally buy those intel n100 mini-pcs for like 100 bucks.

If my 70+ years old parents can do that without my help, ... So no, need to maintain a "infrastructure" to blocks ads...

> Some unknown portion of my subscription fee goes towards the monetization of videos that I watch,

> Some unknown portion of my subscription fee goes towards the monetization of videos that I watch, which I definitely want to happen. Ad blockers don't pay people in lieu of ads, and youtube premium does.

You do realize that what Youtube pays out these days is so small amount, that most creators resorted to sponsoring. This is way more profitable for the youtubers involved. The add revenue is more like icing on a cake, not a main source of income.

And ironically, Youtube is one of the best paying platforms for creators. That is saying a lot.

If i remember correctly, for many its barely 1/5 of their actual income. There is a reason why you see those constant creator advertisement for whatever VPS service etc... and merch sales, ... that is where the money is.

Not taking in account the algorithm and its non promoting videos even if your subscribed, the constant DMCA issues where creators lose tons of money on false claims, ...

> it's not the same thing. it looks the same to you, because you don't give a shit, but it's not the same

I give a shit, I just give more of a shit about my personal privacy and my data not being shared with hundreds of anonymous third parties through the advertising auction mechanism than I do about a creator being paid.

Give me ads without RTB and I’ll very seriously reconsider my adblock usage.

In a way agree with that, and I don't use sponsorblock because of that, but there's another side too: sponsored segments are a dick move too. Well, probably not all of them, but certainly a lot of them. YouTubers proudly proclaiming they use the sponsored product and they are oh so happy with it is lying, most of the time, plain and simple. And the products that are advertised on YouTube are very often on the shady side of things too.

Fortunately, YouTube doesn't tell creators how many of their viewers have SponsorBlock, which means the sponsors have no way to know that either.

It was great business on YouTube's part to make customers feel adblocking is a dick move though.

When I see an embedded ad I will immediately know from the type of product if I should ignore it or intentionally avoid that product because most embedded ads come from the worst of the worst companies. Why would they want me watching their ad if it makes me NOT want to buy their product?

Views might be important to get the attention of a potential advertising partner, but once the relationship has started then keeping it going will likely be dependent on much more relevant metrics for the advertiser. And those metrics will usually be tracked on their end, rather than via YouTube. I'm referring to metrics like click-through rate, propensity to order, revenue on advertising spend, etc. Personalized referral URLs and discount codes are what allow the advertisers to connect their tracking and reporting to the originating YouTuber.

Ok but Youtube shouldn't payout.