This mirrors my sentiments.

I love YouTube and pay for it.

You sound like you don't subscribe to youtube premium.

I have YouTube Premium, it comes with YouTube music; I am perfectly happy paying for that as I consolidate music streaming with ad-free watching in my bed.

It replaced apple music and spotify for me; plus it gives me access to all sorts of music that is only released there as videos.

If I ever have to watch youtube with ads, I am going to just not YT at all.

If Youtube Premium actually blocked all the ads (including sponsored content), then I would pay for it. But it doesn't, so I have to use Sponsor Block anyway. Why pay for something that won't get the job done?

Sponsored content isn't controlled by YouTube though, it's controlled by the creator

Yet third party YT apps skip these annoying video parts. Premium definitely feels like a huge step down if you suddenly see ads in every second video and you are not used to.

which I am paying for anyway if I go premium

thanks, but no thanks

Sponsored content is regulated by Youtube's content policy like everything else on the platform, so it is in fact controlled by Youtube. The same way, the Youtuber's speech itself is controlled by Youtube, as shown by the recent “demonetize all the videos where people curse” (which generated much drama in the French Youtuber community, for cultural reasons).

Because YouTube shouldn't censor their creators.

* * *

If you spend hours, it's so worth it. Youtube is a whole different experience without the constant ads.

Source: Been subscribed for years and I watch hours a day on _average_. In fact I might be addicted to YouTube, but that's a different story.