If you watch vapid slop content on Youtube, that's on you. Don't blame Youtube for giving you what you apparently want. I watch howto's, "edutainment", science and engineering stuff, conference talks, and overall generally positive, helpful content. This is a totally different thing from Netflix, which is mostly just fiction. I'd never pay a subscription for that. The cost of Premium seems like a fair value for what I get out of it, especially since creators get a higher payout for Premium views.

Yeah, Google still tracks you. So does absolutely everyone else, including your ISP that you're paying for. Until you make it illegal, that isn't going to change. I'm not going to put everything on hold waiting for better consumer protection laws, shit's way too dysfunctional for that to be realistic. Life isn't perfect.

Videos from YouTube

You don't get ads. You pay less than double what two premiums cost and your household can share.

I pay for it, also no ads except the sponsor plugs, which are pretty easy to skip. Overall a better experience than the non premium. I don't live in the USA so my cost is like $5/month.

Monetization itself is the problem.

I suspect Google won't care if they "accidentally" lock VPN users out of YouTube Premium.

Gabe and his 300 yachts thanks you.

Fuck em. We try to pay even tho we know how to get it for free. Go back to ad blockers.

Not a perfect experience but it’s better than putting up with that corporate bullshit.

I just got a notification that Amazon Prime is doing the same with grandafathered accounts allowed across households.

How does one pirate free videos? Is there somebody uploading torrents of YouTube videos?

I used to be an a friend's planning exchange for sharing Disney plus. But he booted me after I kept putting weird shit on his family calendar.

"Wash that thing on your back that's hard to reach and puts out a putrid smell."

"Soak feet in melted butter."

I've been a premium member since then. I've been watching the battle with ad blockers from the sidelines.

Who is winning that battle? This will inform my next move.

More people need to use Peertube.

That amount of money should go to Peertube instead…

Have any more details for me? I have a small home server for them.

YouTube is fucking garbage.

I don't care about the ads because it's fucking garbage, and why would I watch garbage?

As someone with divorced parents this invalidates what I call a "family". Same to you... Netflix

YouTube is my only subscription.

I use it for Music and Video. I definitely get my money's worth, they're streaming to me at least 8 hours a day.

If it's not background music, it's videos. I can't even fathom how many hours of ads I have avoided.

Revanced

Firefox + ublock origin still works to block all YouTube ads

Invidious is a frontend for YouTube that blocks all their trackers and ads

PeerTube is an alternative community ran platform to replace YouTube in the future

No, and neither has anybody else. Not saying that to be rude or dismissive, but just using their own numbers on the front page to paint a picture. They have ~3,000 paying members as of right now. Patreon has over 10,000,000 paying members, and even then only a tiny, tiny fraction of their creators are actually sustainable.

Paid subscription services like this are a great idea, in theory; I'd love to get away from ad-supported platforms. But the truth is that they just don't work for all but a few lucky people.