There are also a ton more people doing a lot of niches, so now you get fewer views.

So it's tougher to crack. Surely a better way to rise to the top would be to have fewer or no adverts, and better content.

That I can agree on, but then again, how would they even sell their product if there's no advertisement? The companies that don't charge too much and then stuff some of it into advertisement, tend to go under.

I am not against advertising as a tool. I'm mainly referring to the companies that will pay crazy money for advertising, and pass that expense on to the end users. Blanket advertising, shouldn't be allowed, it also allows the bigger, wealthier companies to drown out the smaller and start up companies.

Creator doesn't really know if you have premium or not and many users (me) will also have adblock so they don't get a cent from these views. That's why many will show you ad-free videos on Patreon or Nebula. No sponsor segments if they know you're a paying customer.

That's why YouTube Premium should be the same as Patreon or Nebula. The creators should be querying YouTube about working something out there, instead of hitting the users with ads that they thought they had paid to get rid of.

I also would suspect that this case would be more about about the letter of the law, and not about what's expected from the creators etc. If YouTube are marketing an ad free experience to people that pay for the service, then this is what it should be. Overall, if anything, this case should work out better for everyone except probably Google. YouTube would have to find a better way/payment to allow creators to have two videos without making too much extra work for them. One for premium and one for non premium.

There is still product placement etc. Subtle suggestions and other methods that I'm sure many businesses would still pay for.