It almost looks like Youtube intentionally raised the number and length of ads before and after videos while heavily pushing Youtube premium alerts to make people sign up for their subscription.
No matter what you do, they win.
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.