It's not about virtue, is about you getting a service, and paying something in return. If you don't want to pay with your attention, you have the option of getting Youtube Premium and paying with your wallet insted.
I have no problem with paying for a service with money.
I do have a problem in paying for it with my data.
If the content creator wants my money for their service, they'll provide a way for me to purchase it without having to use an intermediate surveillance company.
Since I block the surveillance company by default, the content creator is not at a loss from me consuming their content without ads - for I simply would not be consuming their content at all otherwise.
OTOH, the creator may benefit from me viewing their content because I may find it interesting and recommend it to a bunch of other people, who don't have the same privacy concerns as me.
The Youtube ad model is probably not long-term sustainable. Content creators should be looking to find alternative delivery methods based on pay-per-view, or freemium subscriptions to get people engaged. You'll find many already do, as they have patreon pages in addition to their youtube, but patreon is also a surveillance company, so that's not an option for me either.
I don't mind paying for things with Bitcoin. Any content creator can accept money without requiring me to sign up to work for a surveillance company.
I'm sorry but it's a little jarring how you don't even acknowledge that Youtube is a service as part of the equation. You speak about the "content creator" providing you with a service, but fully take the platform on which it happens for granted.
If you don't want to feed the "Surveillance company", then don't use Youtube at all. But it is quite arrogant to benefit from their work, acting entitled to it, and then turn around and shit all over them behind their back.
I do acknowledge that Youtube is a service provider as well as a surveillance company, but I don't agree with the terms on which they operate, so I elect not to use all of their service.
I'm not "entitled" to anything, but the content is accessible to me without being spied on, so this is the way I will consume it until the creator uses an alternative, non-surveillance company to distribute their content.
The onus is on the content creator to provide the alternative - not force me to be spied on.
But again, hidden behind that is indeed an air of entitlement. It implies that you are owed content from the creator, and if the creator decides to put it on Youtube, then they are giving away their rights to be compensated by you. And you still don't really acknowledge that what Youtube (not the creator) is providing you should be compensated either.
If you found a shortcut for getting food from a store without paying (let's say a big store like Walmart or McDonalds), do you think it's a fine thing to do? Do you think it's ethical to get the hard work of others for free, just because the company providing said work is rich?
It's nothing to do with Google being rich - it's about them running an unethical business model of spying on people and selling catalogues of their behavior without their full knowledge or necessarily their consent. (Let's admit, this model relies on the vast majority being naive about data collection and sharing practices.)
The entitlement is actually from Google et al. They think they're entitled to aggregate your data simply because you visit their web page - but we know that the internet does not necessarily work that way, and an ad blocker can thwart their efforts.
I don't think I am entitled to other people's content, but I can access it - that's what happens when you put things in a public space like the internet. The content creator is fully aware that some people are going to block ads and they still upload it anyway. Perhaps they get more viewers by making their content public rather than hiding it behind a paywall?
The store comparison does not work because there is a deprivation of a physical product involved. No deprivation occurs with digital data which can be cloned an infinite number of times. You might argue that you are depriving the provider of bandwidth, but they have elected to make something public with the understanding that they may not be compensated for that bandwidth.
The surveillance business model is only sustainable for as long as people are willing to give up their data in exchange for services. If they are not willing, then Google et al will have to find a new business model. They aren't entitled to your data just because they've made some content publicly accessible and you have chosen to access it whilst maintaining your own privacy.
Perhaps there will be other options for monetization of content other than the surveillance-company-masked-as-advertiser model. Where you can pay for stuff without giving up your privacy.
