Same here. I pay for YT Premium. I never knew this war was waging on. You click a video and it starts playing. A few days ago someone wanted to show me a video

Same here. I pay for YT Premium. I never knew this war was waging on. You click a video and it starts playing. A few days ago someone wanted to show me a video on their iPad. The video was ~10 mins long. We had to watch 2 pre-roll ads, and 2 mid-roll ads. After the second mid-roll ad I asked if this is normal. She said "of course it is, what do you mean?" as if I was living on another planet. But I had been paying for YT Premium for so long I had actually forgotten how bad it was and it seems to have gotten worse. Although, the price of YT premium just went up again (I think this is the 3rd or 4th price hike in a handful of years. At the new pricepoint I could subscribe to 2-3 streaming services, and YT videos are not worth that in my opinion. I also have noticed the algorithm and/or content on YouTube has not been as interesting or engaging to me as it once was. There is also a huge push to shorts, which seems to be a loop of the same small collection of creators. So I may consider cancelling my subscription soon and just minimizing my time on YouTube.