more money than you or I will ever see in our lifetimes

I mean, I feel like you need to expand your comparison a little as the amount that you'll see in your lifetime is such a minute grain of sand on a beech compared to corporate profits. The money they made today, hell, in the last hour... minute... will dwarf the amount that you will likely see.

actively strives to make the user experience worse for people who don't pay

And evidently those who do! My parents live in a different country. What are they, not my family? What's the family plan for? (Rhetorical question)

With Vanced I have so many more options to customize my experience. I can hide shorts I never watch, set a fixed resolution for data and wifi, return the stupid dislike ratio they removed... And if I'm using Vanced anyway to fix all the issues they introduce, why on earth would I additionally pay for their service?

I want to pay for their shit, especially to support content creators, but I can't support a platform whose singular mission it is to make everything worse for everyone constantly. Feels like every month I have to get a new extension to undo some horrible design decision.

I only simp for Steam.

whiteknighting

was a weak-ass criticism when it was on 4chan being leveled at anyone who said anything not derogatory about a woman, and it's weak-ass now. Oh no, someone on the internet has an at-least-partially positive opinion of a company, how awful, we'd better stereotype and body-shame them for it.

If you had your way, the only comments about YouTube - or any other product from a large company - that would be allowed would be negative ones. How the fuck does that make sense?

By Darwin you see a lot. I was merely stating that I think YouTube premium is worth the price I pay for it.

Is there no product you are satisfied with? Your life must be pretty bleak.