>>"Is it worth paying for YouTube?"

I think that largely depends on your personal ratio of income vs perceived value of time vs annoyance by ads.

For me,today,I'm lucky enough that it's 100% worth it. Somebody sent me a link last week and it opened in non google Firefox container so I wasn't signed in... After I went through "wtf" moment at inopportune interruptions, I realized how totally worth it it is.

Yes the content promos are a bit annoying too but much more easily skippable,not to mention better timed & integrated,and less disruptive.

Plus again,I'm lucky enough to be able to afford supporting content creators and pay for what I consume. As a student in war torn Bosnia my perspective was radically different than established worker in Canada.