If you watch vapid slop content on Youtube, that's on you. Don't blame Youtube for giving you what you apparently want. I watch howto's, "edutainment", science and engineering stuff, conference talks, and overall generally positive, helpful content. This is a totally different thing from Netflix, which is mostly just fiction. I'd never pay a subscription for that. The cost of Premium seems like a fair value for what I get out of it, especially since creators get a higher payout for Premium views.

Yeah, Google still tracks you. So does absolutely everyone else, including your ISP that you're paying for. Until you make it illegal, that isn't going to change. I'm not going to put everything on hold waiting for better consumer protection laws, shit's way too dysfunctional for that to be realistic. Life isn't perfect.