If this is true, and I have longed believe it is, then the following, from the article, is a lie:

"It looks like you may be using an ad blocker. Ads allow YouTube to stay free for billions of users worldwide," the message adds.

If YouTube does not "stay free" then it shrinks to a small fraction of it current size.

So-called "tech" companies know users will not pay. This is not surprising since so much of the "content", none of which the "tech" company produces, is garbage. The stuff that goes "viral", that generates the most ad revenue, is not stuff people are going to pay for.

Either the "tech" company's website/app is free and a Trojan Horse by which its users can be spied on at unprecedented levels (thereby attracting investors), or the "tech" business model isn't worth much of anything. Like someone said, "You are the product." Not the stuff uploaded by so-called "creators", YouTube's unpaid workforce.

"Ads allow YouTube to saty free for billions of people worldwide."

YouTube has to be free or it won't be able to continue operation. It's wonderful experiment, all this uploaded video, if we ignore all the surveillance Google is conducting and all propaganda and worse videos Google is forcibly putting in front of people, but this is not something many people with pay for. YouTube cannot convert "billions of people wordlwide" into paying subscribers.