Another great article from 404 Media highlighting the power that the tech giants have amassed over how how we use the internet.
This brings me, I think, to the elephant in the room, which is the fact that Google has its hands on quite literally every aspect of this entire saga as a vertically integrated adtech giant.
This extreme power over the adtech and online advertising ecosystem is one of the subjects of an FTC antitrust suit against Google.
Because this isn't just about "making anything in return" any more than neo-Nazis are booted from platforms "just for having different opinions." More people are using adblockers on YouTube because YouTube isn't simply displaying commercial advertisements, they're pushing "ads" for scams, malware, and all manner of heinous and/or sketchy content. Even separate of that, the frequency of ads and the presence of minutes-long ads you need to manually skip have made watching content difficult and unpleasant, if not unworkable. Adblocker usage is as much about restoring functionality to the site as anything.
All of these issues have been raised with YouTube, but rather than address the complaints by adjusting how ads are selected and served they've decided the only solution is for you to pay them monthly, not just a few bucks but as much as (or more than) the major video streaming services. All of this for content they do not make, at a price point far beyond what they need to be profitable. It's greed for the sake of greed, pure and simple.
If they are so annoying, don't watch at all? Go outside, read a book, watch Jellyfin/Plex.
Plenty of activities to substitute YT time.