Does it seem plausible that someone would forget about the shitty situation, in a discussion about the least bad option in said shitty situation?

Do we really always need to point out the obvious thing we’re already talking about?

I certainly hope not.

Well yah. I mentioned not using YouTube anymore. That’s a viable option.
So is moving to the wilderness somewhere, and living off the grid.
Or to a poor country where it’s isn’t financially worthwhile to for companies to track everyone.

Compromise is always the game.
You either comprise by not using YouTube anymore, or you compromise by giving them the most tightly restricted information they’ll accept.

You’ll never have perfect privacy. I guarentee Google already has a supressing amount of info on you. At least this is officially protected. Once you give the card as proof, you can probably delete it from their saved data. And they have to honor that, both by law and contracts with Visa etc.

Credit card is the best of the options. There are all sorts of strict rules and restrictions about how companies store and use credit card information. Those rules don’t exist for the other options.