To be clear: I prefer to pay for things instead of having to see ads but 13€ / month!? For a meta product that has inherently user-hostile design patterns even without ads?
I have seen SO many acounts praising youtube premium its bonkers, I refuse to believe that many people are paying for it. ItS gOt GrEaT mUsIC AnD I cAn SuPpOrT mY fAvOuRiTe CrEaTorS. same script every time.
ya thats true. I've been screen mirroring on my laptop for that but I get it if its a convenience thing. I used to pay for a bunch of streaming services until they jacked the price, I dropped almost everything after the last round of price hikes. again, mostly a convenience thing.
If on Android, revanced works wonderfully. On iOS you can just use adguard and safari instead of the app. At least that's what I use and I only get ads when I use the default yt app in my oldish Hisense TV instead of casting or just my PC.
I self-host a ton of stuff, and have sailed the high seas for decades to grow my personal collection.
BUT
I pay for YT premium, netflix, and steam, so that my nephews can be on my family plans. Their life can be pretty shitty a lot of the time, and good music, games, and simple distractions help.
I've had it for years and one of the biggest features that I find worthwhile is being able to easily download videos to watch on the plane or play like podcasts when I'm driving. When I first got it, I had a really long commute, so being able to download stuff and play it with my phone screen off is helpful.
You can believe whatever you want. Google Music sent me a free Nest Mini back in the day, and paying for YouTube Pro is right now the cheapest way of having voice activated ad-free playlists on it.
But feel free to give me an alternative "script" that gets similar functionality for cheaper.