YouTube itself is offered for free. The creators of content are not Google employees. Adblocking is a safety measure on my own physical machine.

Not YouTube's users? Maybe. But I am, so by that metric there's some doubt.

I paid for over 2 years for the premium, the cost increases and it's cheaper to pihole everything and support the usual suspects on patreon.

It's become a scenario of "I've given you so many adverts, you should pay me to get less."