Honestly though, why not pay for premium? It’s a little expensive, but it’s a more sustainable ad free streaming. Seems like a win in my book.

Ads are going to be the end of us all if you ask me. Completely perverse incentives. Make people feel bad so they CONSOOM? Dark stuff.

Different from the OP, but Youtube Premium now feels like "we will just make YouTube worse and worse to sell Premium".

Even with all of the pushing toward Premium they have done for me, the only values I even know are "you get the ad blocker experience without installing an ad blocker" and "we stop blocking picture-in-picture support".

I hate that ad blocking causes the channels I watch to not get financial support, but at this point I refuse to let Google be the middle-man and make money off of providing a purposely horrific experience.

What if they just stopped the free version entirely and became paid-only like Netflix, Disney+, etc.? There's no reason they have to offer a free tier at all. To the extent that the paid tier makes them more money, I understand why they'd push people onto it.

> What if they just stopped the free version entirely and became paid-only like Netflix, Disney+, etc.?

Those are cheaper than Youtube Premium, for more exclusive content.

I have two Chrome browser personas (actually quite a few more for work reasons, but two I have open permanently). One with adblock the other without (also due to work reasons). If I use yt on the adblock free one I am bombarded by ads. With adblock? All is fine.

Exactly this. I never see ads on youtube from my desktop, and I don't use youtube on phone. When a friend wants to show me some youtube video they like on their phone, its always a bit of shock how annoying those ads are. I don't have any premium account, just usual set of blockers.

I've became super allergic to ads generally quite some years ago, not watching any channel on TV, just movies/tv shows streamed from PC. Can't and won't go back, ever.

I feel the same way about being 'allergic' to ads. In contrast, when my friend watches youtube on the TV, he is bombarded by ads and doesn't seem to care at all.

I don't mind the premium to pay for ad free youtube. Also the free Play Music (RIP)

I would recommend Firefox focus for mobile. When navigating to the YouTube site I experience no ads.