At least in my case, the SquareSpace/NordVPN/Audible/etc ads aren't preroll - they're embedded in the middle of the video by the content creators. Which is really irritating, because I DO pay for YouTube premium... (by way of GPM All Access, grandfathered in)

Yes, that's supremely annoying. But, at least that sort of advertising doesn't track you, and given that YouTube has seriously restricted the ability for content creators to monetize using YouTube mechanisms themselves, I cut them a little slack on this.

My conscious choice NOT to pay premium. Content creators already get $$ for views.

Why do you think youtube is willing to pay for views?

Aren't youtube ads pay per click? In which case adblock doesn't cost the creator money (if you weren't going to click an ad), and their viewer/subscriber count is still normal (important for non-youtube sponsors)

Pretty sure they aren't -- on my PS4 for example, YouTube shows ads just like on PC/mobile, but they're totally unclickable. There's no button for "see more on this ad" or anything.

I know this because it has shown an ad for something that I was interested in buying, and I tried everything to get to the ad and couldn't. Ended up having to Google it on my phone!

Content creators get paid for ad views.