I mean yeah, suck a fat dick, I’m with you. But IMO paying for YouTube isn’t wrong. If not for ads, they gain nothing from me. I used to lock them in. 3rd party instance, no google accounts, separate browser clients, ad block, sponsor block… everything a decently smart systems engineer could think of.

That’s wrong. I pay for services like nebula, why not pay for YouTube?

I currently pay about 2 bucks a month for YouTube Premium and YouTube Music. I legally share it with people I’m close with. 30 bucks a year for unlimited ad free (other than sponsorships) is very affordable, even if I didn’t share it with family and friends.

I still don’t share personal information with them. They probably think I live in Argentina or something because my account is not defined to a region and my IPA reads as residential Argentina most of the time.

YouTube started as a free to use service (in terms of monetary cost). There’s no way they could ever go from that to pay to use. Content creators depend on YouTube being accessible without monetary compensation through the viewer’s wallet. At the same time, upkeep for on demand 4k video up- and downstreaming is not easy, not simple, not cheap. Not cheap at all. Go ask Nebula and the likes.

Ads are ineviteable. You want goods and services, you pay for them. If you don’t feel like spending money, you will pay by watching ads and/or by giviny away personal information that in turn can be used to create monetary value in some form or another (better advert targeting, better market analysis, etc.).

Strategically avoiding any form of payment for goods and services is frankly immoral. It’s exactly the same as stealing. It morally is stealing. If you go to the store and steal a product, you’re doing the same. You cost said store money without reimbursing them by paying for it. Blocking ads and especially sponsorships is immoral and you have every right to do it as it stands. Just don’t complain about companies disliking your behaviour.