Netflix charges. For a long time they said no to ads. For a long time they said they won’t do ads. Then the profits started tipping down. Wall Street frowned.

Now ads are coming to Netflix, which you will still pay for.

What do you think Google will do, when they do freely abandon services, jack up GCP prices, and set 10 ads on the unpaid tier?

There will always be a cycle of bundling, unbundling, adding ads & removing ads.

In the meantime, if you can stand to identify yourself to Google, the $11.99 / mo I pay for YouTube Premium is some of the best bank for buck I ever spend.

My understanding is all the current plans have no ads and will not have ads going forward. There's a new cheaper tier coming with ads, that doesn't bother me. As long as I pay what I consider a fair price and see no ads I'll be happy.

Streaming services ruined it. Next Netflix jump and its full back to a pirates life for me

I also don't understand this discussion that they want to show ads just for the sake of it. No, all they care about is money from the ad and if they could earn more by not showing it, then there is no reason not to take it.

The argument you hear, is this is how CableTV started. Pay for Ad-free TV. Then they started a few ads, then they added lots of ads to to the subscription you were paying for... but people could not give it up. It's not altogether unreasonable to make the comparison.

Exactly how it will go down. People who pay to not see ads are the most desirable ad demographic of all.

Well if that is the point then Youtube can just make a public, legally binding, unrevokable declaration that they will never insert ads into Youtube Premium. Since they are not going to do it, they lose nothing and their customers get a legally binding assurance. Problem solved.

Why would they do that? You pay for YouTube Premium monthly. If they put in ads, you cancel. Simple enough.

But Disney and Netflix are thinking exactly this; $7.99 with ads, $11.99 with ads.

Slippery slope might be that as soon as enough people by the lower tier, the prices increase to the upper tier

You're right for now. Once upon a time people started paying for cable, and the ads went away there too! (For a while...)