It's a grey area. YouTube, for example, pays content creators out of their subscription revenue from YouTube Premium. When I watch a video, they're receiving some of this money, even if I skip their ads.

Further, if I manually skip the ads, how is that functionally different to automatically skipping the ads? What if I turn off audio or avert my eyes? Are you arguing that I should have my eyes and ears glued to the screen when the ads are playing?