I don't understand why you wouldn't just get yt premium. You get the same features and it pays out well. YouTube premium views are like gold nuggets for creators.
They also keep upping the price every so often. SmartTube is free.
I had YouTube Premium via a VPN subscription then they cracked down on it, sod em! Why do I have to pay more because I'm a Brit than if I were an Indian? Don't bull me on "because I live in a Western country I've got a better salary etc.". If they can afford to provide it to Indians for a lower price then why would it cost them more to provide it to me? Same bandwidth costs. Greed.
I can't believe anybody who did not start using youtube yesterday would ever consider rewarding them. The sheer amount of overwhelmingly negative and widely disliked shit they do every single year for the last decade is staggering.
If not, then I still need to have a custom app/browser extension... at which point why would I pay for subscription anyway?