YouTube used to play the music in the background without Premium. They also removed community subtitles which has led to many many videos being unsubtitled, which has helped nobody.

and it used to have only one skippable ad every few hundred vids. Most of the ad revenue doesn’t go to the creators. Why else do you think many Youtubers just have a Patreon or direct pay instead these days?

so uh, still rewarding greed.