I don't feel that YouTube is dying and I think it's still possible to find good and authentic content creators, while also avoiding ads. It's still so bizarre to me that people don't use an adblocker. I don't usually watch videos on the phone, which makes it that I haven't seen a YouTube ad in so long I forgot what it looks like. And there's still plenty of content creators I didn't know about that are being pushed in my direction. It's just a matter of watching content you like, and then the site will push forward other household users from that same category, and with a little more digging you can really find a ton of good things to watch.