When you block ads on YouTube, the ads are deleted. This has the problem of not giving creators money, forcing you to actually spend $10/mo or whatever the average Patreon subscription is. What if there was an option for an ad to play in the background while a black rectangle covers the screen while temporarily muting the browser tab? (Since the ad still plays in the background, the creator still gets money, allowing you to be a freeloader) edit: peertube has no ads
If it’s about monetarily supporting creators, the answer is “they can’t”. To monetarily support someone you either need to give them money or do something that gives them money (which, in this case, is watching ads).
In terms of supporting in other ways, someone with a large enough reach might be able to post links to videos to their communities and those other people may watch the videos (and ads), or by subscribing to/ringing the bell for a content creator’s channel and being very on top of liking and commenting as soon as something goes up so that the Mystical YouTube Algorithm™️ pushes the video to more people.