This is my frustration as well. It seems like Premium should be all about optimizing for the experience the user wants, without the same dark patterns as the ad-supported site.

The worst is search. Shorts are fine as a row in the recommended stuff that I can watch if I want something short or mindless, but when I search I almost always want a normal video. In the iPhone app I can filter for normal videos, but on the AppleTV, the search is 85% shorts to the point of being useless.

> This is my frustration as well. It seems like Premium should be all about optimizing for the experience the user wants, without the same dark patterns as the ad-supported site.

Why would it be?

Cable TV (which was just YouTube for the 80s and 90s) figured this out early: the attraction isn't the user experience, it's the content. They started off without ads, because, hey, you're paying. Then they introduced ads, because they wanted both your subscription fee and advertising dollars.

Did people cancel their subscriptions because of the ads? Hell no. They ordered the premium package to watch Cinemax, HBO, and pro sports. They paid for Pay-Per-View boxing bouts and rented movies. Then they bought the DVR and digital cable subscription, because HDTV was the new hotness.

Your kid's head will explode if he doesn't get to watch Mr. Beast like his friends at school get to, so you keep putting up with whatever enshittification Google carries out on YouTube. You won't stop, I won't stop, no one will, and they know that.