But that is exactly the business they are trying to morph YouTube into. If we agree that being exposed to persuasion always has negative value, then ads are bad. Watching ads is the only behavior that causes them to persist. If everyone blocked them, YouTube would go out of business or switch entirely a paid model. If everyone paid, then they switched to a paid model already. The only choice the causes ads to persist and increase is to both refuse to pay, refuse to block, and still watch. So don't do that.
If everyone just paid like you pay for anything else in life, YouTube would work for users, and be dramatically better.
Unsurprisingly, the people who consume resources while giving nothing back are the ones making it suck the most.