The same one where you could watch ads or pay, but choose to circumvent instead. I hate ads as much as the next person, which is why I pay for the youtube subscription. If I didn't, I wouldn't use youtube at all.

I don't think we would have as much people creating content if ads always opt in. The system can support a percentage of ad block / ad free consumption and other models for content production beyond ads, subs and patreon. And of course ads are a numbers game to begin with X people exposed mapping to Y people that convert.

But content on YouTube is subscription and ad free or with ads. To subvert that is generally labeled piracy.

YouTube does have drop a prop function to a creator which be another way to more directly direct money to creators of content you consume. If you do $5 one out of 1k videos you watch I thik it's fair to skip ads :)

And if that's piracy then I should be arrested for piracy when I put my computer on mute and when I look away from ads, because that's what I'll do if there's no other technical way not to watch ads.