I sleep to lectures on youtube so I probably clock up a lot of hours a day and ads would ruin that forever - so I pay

but i do enjoy a lot of creator channels too, so it's worth it for that as well. plus i really fucking hate ads.

part of me also thinks - it must cost a bomb to deliver that much data and storage, plus the bandwidth for 4k video at any time, plus paying the people who make content. some of them are millionaires, youtuber is kind of a career and it's not all in-video endorsements.

at some point, someone has to pay, and it's the advertisers paying to access me, or it's me paying. i'd rather pay. i'd prefer it if it was free but i kind of get that it's not. I couldn't pay to host youtube and develop the platform and have everyone watch free.