It really surprises me that they DON'T do this for everyone yet. Is it a technical thing? Is it hard to detect blockers for them? Are they afraid of losing views? Genuinely curious what's holding them back at this point.
1. Youtube is profitable, so there is no pressure to do it immediately.
2. It may hurt video creators more than it helps. Many youtubers are sponsored, so they would prefer a view with adblock over no viewer. This keeps them on the platform.
3. Similarly, it keeps viewers on the platform, and maybe more importantly, away from other platforms.
Personally, I would absolutely stop going to youtube if they tried to block me from visiting while my adblocker is active.
What if that is enough customers for that competitor to build a product good enough to also attract the people Google wants to keep?
They are not customers.
Odds are, we won't watch anything else there.
I don't mind supporting content creators and distributors, but the volume and repetitive nature of watching the same ads over and over again exceeds the value I get from the content.
As for YouTube, I already have enough subscriptions, so I might just end up not using it anymore. The volume of new content for the niches I look for tends to be very low.