Some of us are from a time before the web was commercialized. The answer to your question is we couldn't care less. If these people who make "content" as a means of making money go bankrupt, it's no skin off our backs. It will make more room for people who host genuine works on the web.

Then I have no sympathy for you. You want to live in a world that does not exist, and your desire to do that harms the very people you claim to support, the content creators.

Except for decades, and even still, this world exists. I don't think anyone asked for sympathy.

How can you actually justify consuming content that took time and money to make, without yourself providing any value to the content creators?

If there’s a logic I’m missing, I’d love to hear it.

I'm not who you were talking to as a heads up, but as someone who blocks ads, I frankly just don't care. I view ads as a security risk and as psychological warfare. If Google thinks it worthwhile to invest resources and manages to successfully stop my blocking, fair enough, but otherwise I'm going to continue to optimize for my own well being. Google will go on continuing to be one of the richest and most powerful / influential companies on earth, and the small fraction of ad revenue that the content creator would miss out on from my ad-blocking, well, cost of doing business.

I've stopped visiting Twitch because their ad's are annoying to block. I'll stop visiting youtube if the same happens. I refuse to engage with ads if I have a choice. I've given money to a handful of people on Patreon that I want to support, but otherwise I have greater problems to deal with than the small fractions of a cent that these creators lose by me blocking.

I won't mind if this change drives fundamentalists away from the platform.

"I don't care" is a logic, but it's not... sustainable, right? The current dynamic of some people being of your mind but most people being not that way works, but let me introduce you to the Tragedy of the Commons [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Or it will just lead to more sponsored segments and product placement in "free" videos. Every semi-popular youtuber already has segments where they stop the actual content and talk about NordVPN or HelloFresh or Manscaped.

It's hard for me to find good reviews of Synthesizers because almost every video about a new one is a sponsored video where the instrument was given to the youtuber for free.