Besides the protection racket vibes mentioned you are paying Google first and foremost not the actual content creators. I would argue paying for the hosting actually creates the wrong incentives and empowers the platform over the people whose work you enjoy.
According to Youtube [0], a part of the Premium cost goes directly to creators based on how much time you spend watching their channel. Also, you're not only paying for pure hosting, but for the millions of engineering hour that went into creating the platform. I understand average users not realizing this, but HN should know more than most how much work goes into implementing these services.
And going back to the ad discussion, if you compare it to traditional media, you get to pay more than 10$ and still have to sit through 2-3m of advertisement, compared to the 5-10s long ads on Youtube.
