Look I am definitely... Well, not guilty... Let's say a keen advocate of not having crazy amounts of advertising rammed down my throat.
However I think raw viewership will help with surfacing the video to a larger audience, surely YouTube sees "ad-free" viewership as still a valid barometer of mass appeal and would therefore seek to boost that video in hopes of getting more ad-supported eyeballs on it.
Or I am speaking out of my ass, who knows.
My wife is a big fan of his, as are my kids, I am less diligent a follower. But I can say his content is consistently quite good, and he really seems to live his public persona.