A lot of very talented people make a living by posting videos to YouTube.
YouTube gives them a platform to remain independent content authors. It's not perfect. Nothing is.
YouTube shares ad revenue with them. That's their living. If you pay for premium, you do not see ads but YouTube still pays them for your view. I don't know the full details, I'm sure it isn't perfect.
I'm not sure what part of that you were concerned about knowing, but I am glad I can not view ads and that I can consume a lot of great independently content for a very minimal monthly cost.
I had trouble with pi-hole breaking things and requiring too much manual intervention (compared to browser based ones that I can toggle with a mouse click without changing screens).
> What about watching less TV/youtube?
I generally have youtube on pretty much all day for music as I haven't found anything else that approaches it for music recommendations (which is pretty sad as they're still not great).
I was previously in an apartment that had its own internet setup, using my Xbox to watch what was basically more ads than video. I don't think there's a way to set up a PiHole on their connection (maybe there is, but at the time a Raspberry Pi would cost more than a year's worth of YT Premium.. I was also not aware of NextDNS back then).
That, and Premium views apparently pay creators more than ad-supported views [1], so I justified it that way.
What are you paying for, exactly? Youtube is already free.
Actually wait, I don't want to know. I'm happy with my life, there's no way that knowing this will improve it.