FWIW, Adblock Plus on Windows 11 blocks YouTube ads. However, I'm already on YouTube Music Premium so the comment above about it only costing another £2 pm makes the upgrade worthwhile for mobile and Smart TV watching anway.
If the premium subscription was a bit like patreon, with say 70% getting shared among the content creators I watch, then I might consider it.
As for ads, I thought that basically most of it goes to Google, and a bit gets shared. Except for new creators who get nothing until they have enough views and sign up for intrusion. And any creators that prefer to not have intrusive ads don't get promoted. So the Youtube ads are there primarily to provide an income for Google, not the creator.
And for the creator sponsored ad segments, then they'll have been paid regardless of whether I skip or not. And I always skip Nordvpn/Surfshark untruths and get cheesed off when the creators I would support sell out to the devil and lie about what they don't know about to earn a few bob.
If I pop them a tenner via Patreon/Kofi then they'd get infinitely more than they would if I watched all ads. And since ads are so intrusive, I'd probably watch less than half the content I do. On the TV with the built-in Smart TV app, it's basically impossible to watch youtube. So much pre-roll that by the time it gets to the actual vid, I've forgotton what it was I'd clicked on! Hence the Firestick and App with ad skipping features.
Those who are blocking ads and watching content for free, how do you morally justify consuming people’s content that they’ve worked hard to produce without them getting any money for it from ads/subscriptions
I'd have to think it was morally bad in the first place to justify it. Youtube is a sucky model that only really rewards certain people.
Ads play on my videos but I get no money from that.
If the premium subscription was a bit like patreon, with say 70% getting shared among the content creators I watch, then I might consider it.
That’s exactly how it does work. Admittedly YouTube takes a pretty big cut of 55%, but the remaining 45% of your subscription is shared among the creators you watch, proportional to watch time each month.
For free YouTube viewers the ad revenue is split the same way, ie YouTube keep 55% of ad revenue and give 45% to the creator. In most cases though, ad revenue will be way less than YouTube premium revenue on a per-user basis.
