It’s not like YT is a democracy LOL

And YT was never free. It has had ads from the beginning. Perhaps not its very first months as a startup but those were supported by its seed investment capital so obviously a special and finite circumstance.

YT is ad supported. It always had been. Free services need to make money somehow and ads are one way. It is baffling watching people realize this for the first time because they’ve been shielded by their ad blocker for years, but dude, here outside that little bubble, in the real world, this is how things work.