Yeah, movie theaters figured that out 30 years or so ago when they realized besides trailers (which okay, are ads of a sort), they could subject viewers who paid for a ticket to 20 minutes of ads for things like M&Ms and Coke before even the trailers begin. It's gotten to the point that you might as well show up 30 minutes after a movie is scheduled to begin as the movie itself won't have started yet.
True, but that has a long history. It used to be even more blatant in fact, with characters commenting on how smooth the taste of Lucky Strike cigarettes were in the 1950s.
I both pay for YouTube Premium (let's call it what it is: a hope that content creators get paid) and also use uBlock Origin religiously. Nothing's stopping people from doing both.