> paying for things is not hard

Except when you don't have a money allocation for a premium service

The vast majority of people browsing hacker news are in the tech industry, not high school kids with no money.

I unfortunately am actually a high school kid with no money.

I have a problem with paying for something that has been a basic capability of every computer made in the last 20 years.

Not to mention, the obvious issue that paying for YT Premium requires you to provide valid personal details to Google (for payment processing) and remain logged in. That's way more tracking potential compared to Vanced/NewPipe/Invidious/etc.

Google doesn't care about you as much as you think.

They don't currently, but they (or whoever else gets their hands on their data, whether through breaking in or government interference) might start caring at a later date.

There's no benefit to me to have Google (or anyone else) stalk me so why let them do it?