made any money.
Think about it. You can upload videos to YouTube for free. It will keep those videos available to you for free forever. Even if you make them private. Ignore the serving costs--just the storage costs for YouTube are astronomical. Now un-ignore the serving costs. Those are also astronomical.
Free/Ad-free YouTube is not remotely sustainable.
I don't like ads either, so I pay for premium. No headaches with ad blockers. I get YT Music with it which is worth it by itself.