About Premium generally, if you can afford it and you are considering it, there is no reason to hesitate. I say that both as a channel owner and as someone who pays for Premium every month. You never see an AdSense ad again, and you make that happen while still supporting the channels you enjoy. Pretty win-win, IMO.
Two things that most people don't know about Premium:
1. On a per-view basis, Premium views are actually 'worth more' than ad-watching views. We're talking tiny fractions of a cent, but they add up.
2. Most so-called "demonetized" views remain eligible for Premium revenue.
if the creators only get 1c/month from my premium and google get the lion's share I'll continue to block ads and support via patreon/merch instead
How much of that money is just paying for music licensing I don't want or need?
It sounds like the answer to that is “very little” since you mentioned fractions of a cent per view. So if I watch a few dozen videos from a single creator in a month, can I safely assume they’ll get a couple cents that month from me?
I get that it adds up, otherwise the creators wouldn’t bother creating for the platform, but I’m not sure that helps me justify paying Google another $11.96 a month.
One channel I really like I have the youtube membership and pateron subscriptions. It's a UK true crime podcast that does every recording with professional camera and audio in a recording studio. Seems like it's expensive to do and I get a lot of entertainment out of them so seems fair to help them out a bit more, especially since most of their videos probably get demonetized.