Thank you for calling this aspect out. I’m surprised so many people are overlooking it. I protest YouTube for the same reasons, but I’ve got one more to add.

When they merged Google Music into YouTube, the service became worse. I’d often have music streaming throughout the day over my speakers, but that broke after the merge.

Anytime I watched a video on my phone that had Content ID-recognized music in it (even in the background), they would cut the stream to my speakers because I am only allowed one stream with any music in it at all.

This isn’t the behavior when you use the ad supported service. Only the paid.

Not to mention all the proper features of Google Music that didn’t carry forward.