What makes me really sad is that Google doesn't just not offer a "Music-less Youtube Premium" (due to a lack of attention or whatever) – no: They used to offer that product in some markets and have actively discontinued it.

Just that it does. You only get ads in music videos then.

The EU should look long and hard at that: the market-dominating video platform, owned by the market-dominating search and advertising company, forcing bundled pricing for YouTube in order to leverage the YT monopoly for an edge in the music streaming market.

Sounds anticompetitive as hell, and a government that actually cares about functioning markets should eviscerate them for it.

Why does this matter? Can't you just not use it?

Because they're sold together, so if you wanted forgo YouTube Music, you'd assume it'd be cheaper.

I'd be very surprised if it would be considering YouTube already has music where they already pays the copyright holder for. My guess is YouTube music is focused UI on an already offered service and separating it out will likely not make it cheaper, or if it does, it won't be a big difference.

I really enjoy YTM and see YT Premium as a wonderful perk.

I wonder if there are licensing shenanigans with music that mean they have to be bundled together otherwise you might not be able to watch pure music videos on youtube.

Heck, it won't even remove all ads. A significant number of creators have sponsor segments, and YT Premium won't get rid of that. Why would I pay the Premium tax to get rid of some of the ads?

the plugin "SponsorBlock for youtube" does a good job of using user submitting skipping of said content, people can even mark certain parts as 'filler' and you can also skip those also.