I think Grayjay is a great idea. Many creators have alternate accounts on platfroms like Odyssey (e.g. Hardware Unboxed and Veritasium), in those cases you can subscribe to the non-youtube platform. If enough people do this, it might help us move away from youtube. Of course the last step is also important for this to work (Pay the creators.)

>If they figure out how to only stream with unblockable ads, I will never visit the site again

That's their goal. If you're not earning them money, they don't want you. You don't exist to them and you not watching their ads/videos is no threat at all.

> As a consequence, my time spent on the site is way down, and the time I do spend is higher quality material.

For me, I've found DeArrow (clickbait "blocker") has had exactly the same effect. I find myself no longer mindlessly scrolling through the suggested feed and am more particular about what I choose to watch.

What does Grayjay do? Is it some kind of aggregator?