Depends on your threshold for annoying. While there are terrible ads, I think Youtube is okay. And I don't see it as an arms race at all. It could be a win/win

Depends on your threshold for annoying. While there are terrible ads, I think Youtube is okay. And I don't see it as an arms race at all. It could be a win/win situation. For companies, getting people to watch video ads is a win. For content creators, it's a win cause they get paid. For Youtube, it's a win cause they have a revenue stream. For viewers, it's a win because they don't have to pay anything. The problem is in many cases, if you did want to pay, either to get rid of ads or to support content creators in a greater way, there's not much choice. (Which is puzzling as for a walled garden like Youtube the solution is much, much simpler than for the web.)