Comment by broken-kebab

1. YouTube is my primary entertainment so I don’t mind paying for it in lieu of Netflix or Hulu or whatever

2. I like that it directly benefits the creators of the videos I watch

3. It gets everyone in my family ad free viewing for 0 effort across all devices (I primarily watch it from Apple TV app)

4. Gives you higher quality bitrate option sometimes

5. It gives me the moral and logical high ground when arguing with nerds about YouTube online

6. Can download video on most (all?) devices, comes in handy sometimes, but I don’t use it frequently

7. In the past there have been preview features / experiments that were locked behind it, I think PIP was one of them, may be wrong on that. Nice to check them out or get them first

At some point, paying for something and knowing it will work is worth it. In particular, ad blocking YouTube on mobile is frustrating.

Because there's so much more value to YT premium (including YT music) that goes beyond merely blocking ads. It's really a no-brainer if you watch YT often.

Or, you know, you could just pay for a service that you enjoy. I watch a lot more YouTube and see a bigger need to keep it alive than Netflix, HBO and co for which I am paying good money already, why should YouTube be exempt from that? Also if Netflix goes away tomorrow, you’ll find their content on torrents easily, but if YouTube goes away, we will lose decades of videos that no one has backups of. Expecting them to offer this service for free and without ads is crazy.

I don't block ads because stealing ad revenue from companies is unethical. These companies have workers who have families that they need to feed. They provide a service for free, so it's the least I can do. I watch every ad in full.

My cousin, however, stopped blocking ads on YouTube when the YouTube warnings showed up. She is scared that at some point Google would ban Gmail accounts for doing it, and she's had hers for 10 years and really relies on it. She also says YouTube videos are really easy to download so anything she really wants from YouTube she tends to have a local copy of.

i mostly watch YT via the apple tv app where you can't

YouTube inserts server-side artificial 5- or 30-second delays before streaming can start in order to force you to waste the time that would be taken up by the ad either way.

Because with google it's an unwinnable arms race.

AppleTV

The basic install of Kodi on LibreELEC blocks the ads on YouTube. I left Roku after using it for a long time, and the experience with Kodi is far better. Simple setup, too.

For mobile, I use NewPipe which allows background YouTube as well.

Might not work for everyone but I never see an ad on YouTube.