I just canceled my youtube premium account after about 7 years of constant membership.

The recent price increase was crap. The service I receive hasn’t improved - actually with their shitty compression even on “4k” videos my enjoyment has really decreased.

But, the big driver were ads. With premium I didn’t see ads, instead I was increasingly bombarded with “words from our sponsor” all over videos.

Anyway, I recommend freetube. For now at least, it actually blocks all ads including sponsor blocks.

I won’t pay a monthly fee to be google’s advertising product.

Those “words from our sponsor” parts happen because Youtube pays quite little to creators. Youtube Premium doesn’t get passed on to Youtubers.
I remember hearing from LTT (whose name is now in the mud) that YT Premium views do pay significantly more. It’s just that there aren’t many YT Premium subscribers compared to non-paying users.