By that logic we shouldn't be even a allowed to look away or mute our sound when the ads are playing, after all if enough people did it it would be just as "dam

By that logic we shouldn't be even a allowed to look away or mute our sound when the ads are playing, after all if enough people did it it would be just as "damaging" as people with ad blockers. Also, YouTube is a video streaming monopoly, if it didn't exist there would be a significant chance of new streaming platforms to succeed, but given that it captured the marked such chance is unlikely to exist, monopoly that they achieved hosting videos free of ads (or very light on these) and now that they have the control want to force people to pay or watch a ridiculous amount of ads.