They've decided to step up the arms race because they've hit peak daily user count and the only thing they can promise to the board is force increasing premium memberships. I take it channel "memberships" are also not hitting the numbers they would like and they haven't destroyed Nebula or Patreon as they'd hoped.
I will never pay for YouTube. The most they'd do is force me to stop using it. I'd be fine using the mobile site, but they've gone and intentionally broke that too. I mean, it works, but it's buggy as shit.
One thing about capitalism: companies are never done extracting higher profits. Doesn't matter if users pay for YouTube or whatever, Google will want to increase profits next year anyway.