I also pay for yt premium.

Most people do not seem to like pay to play, pay to “win”, etc and this falls either very close or in that category.

The long term economics seem questionable to me. Google can always turn up the heat a bit more with ads, charge more for the ads, play more of them, etc when they need to be more profitable. The only way they make more from premium subscribers is charging more and they will lose people each time they do. I guess technically they could make more if premium watchers viewed less content but there’s a pretty hard floor and I suspect the economics of it are much like soda fountains.

I’m afraid ultimately if premium becomes too large of a user base Google would need to turn it into an “ad-lite” experience to increase profits. Then we’re in an even worse place.