I don’t agree. They can reasonably argue that advertising is a requirement of their business model, so it is necessary to advertise. Therefore it is necessary for them to block access to those blocking advertising. The directive cited isn’t intended to make advertiser supported services effectively illegal in the EU. That would be a massive own goal. It’s intended to make deceptive and unnecessary data collection illegal. Nothing YouTube is doing is deceptive. They’re being very clear about their intention to advertise to non-subscribers.
They can reasonably argue that advertising is a requirement of their business model,
Couldn’t that claim be countered by pointing out that they already deploy a for pay approach called youtube premium?
No, because businesses have multiple revenue streams. YouTube has a subscription offering, and a free, advertiser-supported offering. Both are part of their business model.