I get that it started for free with less intrusive ads, but YouTube has had a huge impact on the way we all share and consume information. Understanding how much money it takes to run a service with the technology needed to provide high definition videos on a site that is up 99.9999999% of the time, I have no issue paying for a service that has changed my life in many positive ways. Now I do hate price gouging like everyone else, but it’s inescapable from gas & groceries to all streaming platforms.
I would be fine with it if it were a privacy-respecting platform that was subscription-based first and foremost, then had an ad-supported tier as well, but unfortunately it’s owned by Google so they’re collecting untold troves of data even from paid subscribers and that’s the actual product for them.