I can also pay YouTube $0 a month and never see an ad again.

I do pay money for Nebula, because they seem like their hearts are in the right place. I pay about $60, 70 a month to various podcast and video creators directly.

I don't use adblock, vanced, and sponsorblock because I'm cheap. It's because I don't like what YouTube as a whole is doing with incentivising clickbait and maximising revenue above just being an unobtrusive platform.

I whitelist Alec at Technology Connections, Steve Mould, a couple of others, from the ad blocks, because they aren't on Nebula yet. They should be.

I am discussing whether or not youtube is rent-seeking. The fact that I can pay money to get rid of all the ads is either orthogonal to my point or supportive of my point.

Your views are also worth more to the creators. That isn’t to say there are not other issues with creators and wringing money from the Google branded stone.

We are already paying with our data.