For Youtube it makes sense to pay. I did the jump and it was worth it - no ads, play music with locked screen on the phone.
Relationship between consumers and business don't have to be adversarial : I'm glad to pay for a product that I consider worth it, and having the choice to pay with money instead of brain time with ads is a clear positive to me.
What if what you do is use youtube-dl?
When you pay for something, you expect service and support. Google is not known for support, especially if providing support requires staffing of actual breathing humans, so the rollout was delayed until at least a minimum of support standard could be met.
Definitively worth the money and I won't have to have a bad consciousness for running ublock.