This, as much as people may moan, is the answer. Either that or go subscribe to Nebula or whatever not-YouTube platform your favourite YouTube channels are publishing to.

Content production costs money, in some cases vast amounts of it, and while advertising is a terrible solution to that just not paying is an even worse one. If everyone blocks ads then nobody gets paid, and nothing gets produced.

Its not just about moaning, it's about paying it forward. I'm not sure when people decided everything should be free - under a certain income sure we should be subsidized, paying for things is a way of voting for the way you want to see the world.

If you don't pay you don't have a choice. "Not using" is not enough, because you still need to support what you do use.

I pay for premium but still have to use vanced to avoid the sponsor segments that are in literally every video now. I totally understand why people wouldn't bother with premium until youtube offers a native sponsorblock-like alternative