What value do you bring to YouTube, especially since YouTube does not make any money from you?

What a strange question. Why does this matter?

If nothing else, platform engagement clearly is a driver for the business model. Comments, shares on other media.

Youtube purports itself to be a free site, so I'm not sure why one would ask this question.

> There is no theft when I use youtube because I was never going to click on ads in the first place.

Advertising works on multiple levels, with direct sales not necessarily being the only acceptable result:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchase_funnel

However, me not buying something is quite obviously not equivalent to theft.

Besides, I only watch youtube ad-free. If this becomes impossible I will simply stop watching youtube, so, I don't think this strategy will have much effect on me either, at least within the context of youtube.