I get that it started for free with less intrusive ads, but YouTube has had a huge impact on the way we all share and consume information. Understanding how much money it takes to run a service with the technology needed to provide high definition videos on a site that is up 99.9999999% of the time, I have no issue paying for a service that has changed my life in many positive ways. Now I do hate price gouging like everyone else, but it’s inescapable from gas & groceries to all streaming platforms.
I was under the impression premium views result in more revenue for the creators you watch compared to views with ads.
They do!
They do but it’s not that much more significant than overall ad revenue. Having a Patreon or a merch store will probably outperform 10 fold anything that YouTube pays from both ads and premium views combined.