Is that something only available to paying subscribers?

I've never even had a YouTube login, but the few channels I access fully via the web interface only ever spam me with YouTube Premium offers for eliminating ads.

There's zero offering/marketing of direct-to-creator subscriptions, not that I've seen.

There's also zero chance of my buying YouTube Premium, but a non-zero chance of my giving money exclusively to the specific creators I value - even if YouTube took something along the lines of a haircut for making just those channels ad-free.

Hopefully the difference is clear.