Also, creators have pointed out that premium views are worth s lot more to them than ad views.

I need to use YT's infrastructure when viewing any YT content. Targeted advertising is how I pay for access to that infrastructure, and how they cover their costs.

I don't pay to enter a grocery store - I may get an extra discount if I let the business track my purchases, but that's not required. I also definitely don't need a car to pick up my groceries. Most of us do pay taxes for the roads and sidewalks we use to get there, but they're still perfectly free to use if we are unemployed (and those are more analogous to "the internet" than to YT itself).