Google raising price of YouTube Premium to $13.99 per month
Google raising price of YouTube Premium to $13.99 per month
9to5google.com
Google raising price of YouTube Premium to $13.99 per month
812 comments
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My YouTube subscription costs 0. ublock Origin.
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Unlock origin and ReVanced is great, but it doesn't allow casting to the TV without ads..
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Smarttube Next works great on my TV with FireTV. No ads.
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That's my secret, Cap. I don't own a TV.
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If u have an old Laptop colleting dust you can always install a light weight Linux on it and use it for YouTube or even pirated Films or series on your TV
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This is when apple comes in clutch with airplay. Safari + sponsorblock equals casting supremacy. I don't even have the YouTube app installed on Apple.
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I run Newpipe on a fire stick. No ads.
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Does ReVanced still work? I know YouTube Vanced was killed a while back, but I think I tried ReVanced recently but couldn't get it to work.
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There's catt which can be installed in termux on Android or directly on your PC easily enough. AFAIK there's also a few (T)UIs for it out there. I personally have set up a bash script in
termuxas a share target and send the links from the revanced app tocattfor casting. But yeah, it's definitely more work and needs more expertise setting it up than hitting the cast button in the app, fully agreed. -
Best solution is PiHole. If you can find RaspberryPi, but any replacement will work. Essentially local DNS which ignores requests to ad servers. There are also some other DNS servers which filter ads. But I've had less success with them.
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They started blocking users with advanced adblockers completely in some places. It's expected they'll roll out that policy in most countries. Prepare to either ditch Youtube completely, watch dozens of ads as well as sponsored segments every couple of minutes (because why would Google pay content creators who make them a huge pile of money by providing content for free adequately, right?) or pay hundreds of dollars a year. Even then they might start showing you some ads because why the hell not? Big tech stole the internet from us and now they're banking in on it big time. Needlesly to say this is not a sustainable business model, but since when did that ever bother mega corporations?
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It's a cat and mouse game, and history has proven that in this case adblockers will win. Or we'll get ad blocker blocker blockers.
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Prepare to either ditch Youtube completely
Your terms are acceptable...
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Unless they put YouTube content behind a paywall there will always be ways to block ads.
Probably that would be their future take, free 3 minutes of the video, if you want more... pay.
And then will the era of pirating and downloading YouTube videos begin.
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Oh no my dns provider broke and it cant resolve the ad servers. Pihole for the win
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This right here. Crazy to me that people would pay for what ublock origin does for free. Especially people defending the need to shell out for the service to "support" a trillion dollar company like Google.
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I don't have the money to sustain the "everything is a subscription" simple as that. So adblockers and piracy is the only way to get media content.
I still go to the cinema, but some cinemas over here are already experimenting with subscriptions.
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I'd be willing to pay for a few subscriptions if I didn't feel like subscription services are trying to gouge me left and right. I miss the days when subscriptions to Netflix and Spotify gave me access to 90% of content online.
Contrast this with Steam, which gives me centralized convenience, seamless updates, online sync, achievements... No wonder that's where I spend almost all of my entertainment money these days.
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By the time steam chokes and shittifies we are all doomed
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Software subscriptions are what really bums me out. Back in the day you could just buy your software and have it forever. Now Microsoft Office is a subscription, Adobe Photoshop is a subscription, and so much more. Nothing pisses me off more than when I install a basic app on my phone and find out it's actually a subscription app.
Literally the only major software I can think of right now that isn't subscription based or insanely expensive is Apple's Final Cut Pro at $300.
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This right here is one of the biggest reasons I turned to exclusively open source software, cuz man the amount of internal rage I feel any time I have to log into software is unreal, like I open the software I want it to just go
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"buy your software and have it forever" was not really true other than in the very early days. everything that was in active development like office, photoshop, all the pro music software i used, was updated regularly and had an upgrade cost. my music app had a paid upgrade every year like clockwork for $150. it was essentially a subscription in all but name. yeah i could stop paying and stay with the last version forever but operating system and hardware advances would make it so those versions would stop running on newer machines eventually.
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Fortunately Microsoft Office isn’t fully subscription yet, but with how much they’re pushing Office365 it’s not too surprising that people don’t seem to realize this. You can still buy a permanent license from MS directly (with some digging around to get to the correct page) or from 3rd party websites. Only downside is it locks you into the current version of Office, but for the average user (me) that’s not too much of a big deal - I can’t recall them releasing any major must have features over the past 10 years.
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I just don't care 🙌
I seriously couldn't give two fucks about supporting influencers or tech companies. Uploaders can pay for the infrastructure for all I care. Like people use to host websites out of passion, now everything is about profits, and politics, why would I want to support that? Why should I give two fucks about making someone else rich?
Fuck that shit. You can get cracked copies of the YouTube App that give a much better experience.
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I do pay for a couple subscriptions, but in the 2000s I had a subscription service for video games called GameTap and it was great except they could add and remove games on a whim and when you stop paying you lose access to all of it. So you need to remember a subscription service is ephemeral and there's long term benefits to having the files yourself.
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A single ticket to my local movie theater costs $16.50 for an adult ticket to a typical movie. That is already more expensive than a month of unlimited Youtube premium, even at the inflated price.
Video streaming is a consumable product. What model would you prefer. Ad supported is still available. A la carte is reasonable in theory, but doesn't seem like it would work well for a site like youtube (even though youtube does have some a-la-carte offerings such as movies)
We used to have a movie subscription service around here. It failed because it was essentially sellings dimes for nickels.
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From an actual cost perspective, a video streaming on YouTube is not even remotely the same as a movie ticket. The company selling the movie ticket has to price each ticket to ensure that the company can make enough money to cover:
- Rent/lease for the building
- Wages for employees
- Purchase/rental of movies from studios/distributors
- Purchase/rental of equipment to project movies onto screens
Google has its own costs of course, but for essentially the same thing (showing a person a video), Google's costs are vastly lower per person, because the video they are showing you is a digital file that lives on a server, and the same file is shown to everyone who wants to view it.
Another example: A book printed on paper requires a lot of physical materials - ink, paper, cardboard, glue, etc. Selling a paper book requires machines to print the pages, trucks and trains to transport raw materials to and from factories, and to locations where they book can be sold.
For a paper book to end up in your hands, lumberjacks need to be paid to cut down trees. Miners need to be paid to dig the materials required to make ink out of the ground. Printing press operators need to be paid. Truck drivers need to be paid. Warehouse workers need to be paid. Delivery drivers need to be paid.
A Kindle ebook is a digital file that has been uploaded from the publisher directly to an Amazon server, and Amazon is certainly able to provide itself with server space at far lower than retail cost.
A brand new printed paperback version of the lastest David Baldacci novel costs $19.99 on Amazon. The Kindle version of the same book costs $14.99. Considering that the Kindle version has almost zero of the costs associated with the print version, and is literally the exact same digital file that is sent to every single person who purchases the ebook, the ebook, compared to the paper book, generates almost 100% profit with almost zero additional costs or overhead.
Given this, should an ebook cost almost as much as a real book? Should a YouTube Premium subscription cost as much as a movie ticket?
Or are two of the most profitable companies on the planet simply charging "real" prices for digital products because they have a de-facto monopoly in their respective markets, and they can basically just do whatever they want?
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I pay $22 per month for the family plan because I don't want my kids or my folks to have to be constantly inundated with ads. And I enjoy being and to play free music that is exactly the songs I want.
I was really upset when they raised the price on me, and kicked me off the grandfather plan. But in the end I decided it was still worth it.
But what the real cost to Google is here is that they have evaporated my loyalty and good will. I now see them as a company that will squeeze me when they know they can get away with it, and that my loyalty and being an early adopter means nothing to them.
That will definitely affect every future buying decision I make for future products and services.
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Yeah I love Youtube Premium on the family plan. People on the internet act like there's no benefit to it as long as Adblock and Youtube Vanced exist. Meanwhile I have an iPhone, smart TVs, and my whole family does too. My nieces and nephews don't have to get bombarded with ads, and that's well worth it to me. But the way they silently jacked the price up $5 per month was a total dick move that I'm not happy about. If they keep pulling this shit, it's only a matter of time before I find another solution.
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smart TVs
SmartTube can solve that issue, at least, assuming it runs any form of Android. I don't know enough about iPhone to know if there's an alternative there.
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Doesn't matter to them what you think, since they can simply buy any good alternative that show up.
Basically these companies are similar to kings now. They own our services and our data. And the peasants may whine a bit but can do nothing.
At least on Lemmy we are left alone for now.
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Psst, Invidious and NewPipe don't have ads either!
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I had that for $14 a month and they were going to raise it to $22 so I said bye just at the perfect time since ReVanced released it's manager to install.
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The amount of downvotes on comments trying to help people not get price gouged and comments supporting these subscription price increases shows me just how many corporate shills are actually out there. No wonder these corps keep getting away with this bullshit.
Edit: Wow so many people took personal offense to this...almost like it they know it's true but are afraid to admit it. Everyone is hurting financially right now, some more than others. Yet year over year, the prices keep going up even with record inflation and record profits. Keep shilling folks, enjoy emptying your wallets for the millionaires while you struggle.
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I'm not going to defend the price increase, but a lot of comments in here are just aimless hatred of the idea of paying anything, ever.
Pound for pound, YouTube Premium has been a decent deal at $10. Has been. This is pushing it, but there's a lot of comments that seem absolutely indignant at the idea of paying YouTube period (and by extension the content creators).
There's got to be some room for nuance here. The internet is plagued by advertising and paywalls, yes, but it can also not exist without them, so we find some middle ground.
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It can definitely exist without advertising and paywalls. It just going to be smaller.
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I've been using the internet for over 24 years. I can tell you that the internet can survive without ads or paywalls. Ads and paywalls are a product of greed. Ads are way more efficient these days but many used to take up so much memory. I remember when AdBlock or whatever it was called came out. It made browsing the internet smoother.
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Yeah. We can’t have free, privacy, and creators that eat. Pick two.
(We might end up paying and getting neither privacy or paid creators… but at least it is worth the attempt to do things right.)
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Poeple think they are sharing their enormous profits with creators. Maybe they get a few bucks from the billions.
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It's surprising to me. First moment I've thought maybe Lemmy is a worse place to be. Is there really that many astroturfing trolls here? Yikes.
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I can afford $13/month on my income and watch YT on a daily basis, much more than any other streaming service by a wide margain. Does that somehow make me an astroturfing troll?
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Yet year over year, the prices keep going up even with record inflation
Well yeh, that's what inflation is...
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I don't understand what shilling will earn for these people. The corps don't care about you. They never will and never have. Do these shills think there's some comfy bonus to be gained if they wave their flag around in support of greedy practices?
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I think what you are seeing here so far is the organic result of those dumb enough to pay this kind of money for youtube being personally offended and defending their bad decisions.
We will get there but I'm not sure that this platform is large enough to be a major target for corpo bots just yet. Just dummies.
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You can say what you want to or about me, I honestly don't care. I didn't even see what you said or report it. Have fun emptying your wallet for your corpo overlords.
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Ads are going to pay for it either way.
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You're getting down voted to hell, but I totally agree. Using someones else's YT account or using it at work is so jarring because I am used to a 100% ad-free experience. It's a good value to me, I'm not going to cry about paying $15 a month for a service I literally use multiple hours a day.
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Ya how dare people actually pay for a platform that hosts billions of videos and streams to billions of users essentially lag free and is actually decent and shares revenue with it's content creators. /s
Things cost money. You don't have to be a corporate shill to not expect everything to be free, you just have to be an adult.
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Google is one of the richest companies in the world.
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I get that, but the vast majority of content creators seem to make their money with sponsorships or their own ads, so most of what google is doing is content distribution, not creation. Which makes the amount of money they want for that seem ridiculous when pretty much every other streaming service that produces high profile and expensive shows themselves is way cheaper.
This feels like your supermarket requiring entrance fees in addition to you having to pay for stuff you actually buy.
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I see.
We are at fault for youtube giving shit away for free. We are responsible for youtube's profits.
We not only need to offer content FOR FREE to youtube ... but then accept that we must pay youtube for our content.
Get fucked.
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Firefox+UBO and Revanced users: Oh no... anyway...
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They're blocking users who use UBO
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That's what they want you to think.
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I'll have you know I remain unblocked.
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I am not blocked. I use UBO.
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Didn't they already try to do that with manifest v3? They couldn't do shit within their own chromium platform, I doubt they'd be able to do it now.
And even if they could, UBO devs would just find a way around that.
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Not all of them, currently. And if they were to do that, I'm sure some handy people will find a way around that.
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Block their Google account or block from viewing videos on YouTube?
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That's nice. continues to enjoy effectively yt premium with NewPiped for free
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It crashes decently often but still worth it
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It has never crashed for me. Not once. In what device are you using it?
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Seems like a good alternative. Do you know if there a way to import my current subscriptions?
Also, I've been using the music service for some time now as well. Do you have any suggestions for viable replacements for that?
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They gave me 3 months free and it was just the same broken website without ads.
Youtube is completely broken. The algorithm doesn’t even auto play undiscovered music or videos. It’s just serving me the exact same videos I already watched. It used to be a really fun and good service that was free and now you get shit and have to pay for it.
Why would anyone pay for that?
Is anyone running the company or are they all just doing drugs?
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Good for the users =/= good for the shareholders
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Unfortunately you need to (at least in my experience) purge the feed couple times a year. Just use "not interested" with a heavy hand and a light heart. It tends to recommend new stuff after that.
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My wife and I watch certain YouTubers more then we watch TV, and use a TV to do it, so it's pretty nice not having any ads and we don't really rely on the algo at all.
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If you're using a smart TV running any version of Android (Fire TV, etc.) or you're using a device that plugs into your TV that's running Android, you can use SmartTube to watch YouTube if you want.
It blocks ads, it's got SponsorBlock, and it supports casting from somewhere else (like your phone's YouTube app). It's also pretty customizable, too.
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I'd rather have a cheaper version premium just for Youtube without ads though. I've heard there is or was Premium Lite in some countries, but not where I'm from. I don't need Music, I already pay Tidal for that.
Or is YT Music with Premium so much better than the free one? When I cancelled my Spotify and were looking where to move to, I gave the free YTM a try. It would be two birds with one stone - YT without ads and a replacement music streaming service. But I just hated the whole experience. The UI, that my music "follows" get mixed with YouTube subscriptions, and that it always plays a video with every song.
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That's why I got Nebula. It's not everyone I watch on YouTube, but it's a lot of the best people, and they get a much, much larger amount of revenue from me specifically than they do from even YouTube Premium at a better price since you're not also paying for YouTube Music on top of it. I was a devoted Google Play Music All Access listener, but true to form Google forgot about it and then replaced it with a worse service that costs more money. Spotify and Nebula as separate subs is as close as I'm going to get to the old school GPMAA/YouTube Red bundle and I don't have to give a penny to Google for it
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Yeah basically the same. The video thingy only does it when the song is not available on YouTube Music and it's playing a video.
Which honestly is the only thing why I switched to YouTube Music, on Spotify if the song isn't there that's it, but YouTube music there is always a user or band uploaded video.
When is available there is switch to choose if video or music and well on the phone you can always use the audio only option as you can do with YouTube. The rest the same as you said it.
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I don't like YT music at all, but it is a nice double dip and I learned to live with it. I'd certainly switch to a plan without music if given the chance.
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NewPipe (mobile), FreeTube (desktop), SmartTube (TV). If you did not know about these, you're welcome.
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We believe this new price reflects the value of YouTube Premium
I disagree. YouTube offers nothing without the content creators. While reason I ever started using it because TotalBiscuit made a good case for it. But I have to say, while they keep jacking up prices I don't feel like I'm getting anything more. I never asked for YT Music and would gladly take a discount to have it removed.
Keep fucking around and find out Google, I got no issues going back to ad blockers. Whole reason I got premium was to support those I watch and all I ever hear is how Google is fucken them over.
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I really wish they'd drop the YouTube Music aspect of this and just do an ad-free YouTube sub. Happy to pay content creators for their work; less happy to give Google money for a music platform after what they did to Google Music.
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I'm the opposite. I'm still grandfathered into the $7.99 Google Music sub, which turned into YT Music + YT premium. The cheapest music service with basically free YT premium is nice
I wouldn't pay more though
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I like YouTube music though? I refuse to give Spotify money because of Joe Rogan, and if you're a classical music lover YT is just better.
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Switched over from Spotify after they went too hard on Joe Rogan, so I never used Google Music. I like YouTube music. That said, they’ve just started adding podcasts - really hope they don’t go the way of Spotify.
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My adblockers are holding steady with a 0% rise! I still ain't paying!
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Google’s really been on one lately. They’ve also been laying off staff, increasing ads while trying to ban ad blockers from YouTube, raised the pricing of workspaces yet again and closed the unlimited drive storage loophole. Removed photos from the album archive thingy. And I feel there’s been a few other things within the last couple months I’m forgetting.
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Lol. Theres already no way I'd pay for YouTube premium. Raising the price more and more just entrenches that more and more.
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Exactly. If you want me to subscribe, lower the price! Don't these corporations do some kind of analysis, where if you lower prices, you get more subs and more money...or raise prices, less subs, and overall less money. The soda companies are the same way. It used to be $3 for a case of soda, now it's $7+. I've noticed that since they did that, the soda aisle at my local grocery stores is about half the size it used to be.
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Increasing the price of a service that is already piss-poor value for your money is incredibly smart. Who the hell is gonna pay 14$ per month just to get rid of ads?
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I really wish they’d decouple it from YouTube Music. I don’t use it and if just Premium was about $10 or so I’d at least consider it.
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It increased a couple months ago to like $25 CAD lmao. Still worth it, though. I watch so much YouTube.
It's weird how people are fine paying for Netflix, Hulu, CrunchyRoll, Twitch, etc, but draw the line at YouTube, the platform that has infinite more content and actual value.
It's still less than my parents pay for satellite. Also comes with YouTube Music if you wanna ditch Spotify. Kinda a 2 in 1 deal.
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Newpipe has me covered on my phone, and a few extensions in FF has me covered on Desktop, and I've already got Spotify. YouTube Premium offers me nothing, and I suspect it's the same for a lot of people.
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i wonder what is the ceiling price for most until they will drop it
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It’s getting close for me…
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I never understand the practice of increasing prices to stuff like this when you have less income, because all it does is drive away current and potential customers.
It's like with cinemas, if you reduce the ticket price enough you'll easily fill up screens. If they want more money from YouTube premium they should reduce the price to increase membership to cover the cost and then some for what you reduced it by.
It's not rocket science.
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They want people to start using YT Premium while slowly blocking ad-blockers, but they increase the subscription price... what?
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I miss Google play music. Shit was fire.
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Good job YouTube, I was considering picking up your subscription but now nooope, expensive enough in NZD as it is
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When Google announced Play Music in 2011, I got in early and my subscription price was locked in at $8 USD a month. They gave me Youtube Premium (and Youtube Music) when that launched as part of that subscription. When Play Music was killed, my Premium membership continued at $8 a month.
At the moment, I'm fine paying this very specific early adopter price since I watch a lot of Youtube content. If they ever raise the price on me, it's getting dropped.
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Have you checked the price lately? They upped the family plan for me over 50% in April.
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They didn't upped his price because he's a early member
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Same. I'll be keeping an eye on it. I really like having access to YouTube without ads, but I detest YouTube Music and opted to pay for a Spotify subscription a few months after they killed Play Music. I'm not going to pay that much for just the lack of ads. I may find another way.
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In the article say that grandfathered accounts would get three additional months at their current price but would ultimately be raised?
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Still a good value compared to Netflix tbh
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I'd argue that neither are good values.
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Imagine paying that, damn.
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Could be $20 I don't really care when I get music included. Yet you people are paying similar price for one music service aka Spotify lol
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What do you mean "you people"?
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Wait… people PAY for YouTube?
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So I have a question for YouTube Premium haters:
How is this any different than what most people pay for both another music service and another video service? It's about half the cost of other music + video services (when combined), even with the increased pricing over the years. I've been paying for YouTube Premium since the awkward Google Play Music transition and it's a bargain, especially when I had my student discount at like $4.99 a month.
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Youtube premium is pretty pointless when ublock origin exists.
Edit: sorry should have clarified. I meant in terms of blocking ads. I realize that you still can't play youtube videos and switch apps.
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Well, I guess I bought the yearly sub in Turkish liras just in time (about $20/year)
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Exactly. 14 a month is better to just download Adblock and work on the alternatives. 20 a year, considering the amount of youtube and youtube music I use is a great deal.
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How do you do that? Would like to do it too
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You just need a VPN and a virtual credit card that allows for currency conversion (so you’re effectively paying in the target currency). I did this a couple of months ago, so I cannot guarantee this still works
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I would never pay google for anything. They’re making enough money taking all your data and selling it. I will always use an ad blocker with sponsor block and donate to any content creator that provides good content for me.
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Holy greed!
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YouTube Revanced ftw. Firefox with uBlock Origin ftw too.
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So sad there are no free alternatives such as NewPipe that do exactly the same thing.
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First they try to block ad blockers, now they milk their users even more. Who didn’t see it coming? I guess people will just pay up.
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Yea, just look at the comments in this thread.
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Who tf is actually paying for YouTube premium?!
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I have a YouTube premium subscription for one reason: I travel a lot and you can't put an adblocker on an old hotel TV that only has the YouTube app
Once I get to travel less, I'll go back to only using ublock origin and sponsorship block.
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The monthly savings from boycotting youtube continue to rise.
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Uhm, so what extra value to subscribers did they add recently? Is it just a case of Google's costs going up or simply their need to make more profit to delight shareholders?
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They emailed me thanking me for being a part of their journey for so long and as a gift they are delaying my rate going up by 3 months. Cool…..
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Thankfully the price of my YT free account is still only the cost of everything I've ever written in email or a web browser so all good 👍
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Enshittification continues…
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Sucks for me. I use iOS (I'm sorry) and that's the original reason I got YouTube Red (back then): they make iOS users pay for background playback. Most of my YT consumption is documentary / essay / spoken word stuff so I need that feature to treat it like a podcast player, basically. Most of the rest of my YT consumption is in my living room, where ad blocking isn't an option (and I hear even if it was, they're catching up fighting ad blockers).
I hate the Web 2.0 "enshitification" of platforms, and I hate advertisements, and I'm willing to pay for a good, useful service. But this is a mixed bag. It's still 'enshitified' because most of what it serves me is algorithmic and nothing to do with the hundreds of channels I've subscribed to over the 13 years I've had this particular account. It's still chock full of ads because videos do sponsor blocks these days.
And the worst of it is they've got you by the balls and there's really nothing stopping them from being Netflix and just continuing to raise and raise the price. I was an OG Netflix Instant Streaming for Xbox 360 user...years later when they finally booted me off my own family plan, we were paying like...$23 a month? For what had at that point become the worst video service? What stops YouTube from bumping up to $19.99/mo a couple years from now? It's the only game in town.
OH and they're also selling all your metrics. That's the other thing. If I'm paying (through the nose) for a service, it shouldn't be double-fucking me by selling predictive measures of who I am and what I care about to filthy fucking "advertisers" (for-profit behavior manipulators).
YouTube (like every last piece of Web 2.0) was fun while it lasted. But it is now barely better than worthless.
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Wait, what the FUCK!?!
This price increase is live for new subscribers as seen on youtube.com/premium. Instead of $11.99, YouTube Premium now costs $13.99/month. Meanwhile, it’s $18.99 if you’re subscribing from the iOS YouTube app.
I’ve been paying $4/month over market rate this whole time?
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These services think people get their money from trees. Also seriously who even pays for YouTube Premium? There are both adblockers and website download tools, both of which are completely free.
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So... another 50 cents if purchased through India?
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Oh well, too late to join now. Thought about that subscription in the past, but now it’s clearly out of the question.
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I'm still not going to subscribe, weren't they worried about the amount of subscribers the other week!?
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I cannot imagine paying anything for YT Premium, let alone $14 lol.
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I pay ~$6.50 a month for a family plan following the guidance on cheapies.nz to sign up with a VPN and pay in Ukrainian currency (had trouble with turkish) - because google screwed me over when I was paying $19.99 a month on the grandfathered plan. if that ever stops working ill just cancel the lot and go back to sailing the high seas.
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Wow, they really didn't have much reason for me to want to use it before. I dropped Amazon Prime because it was getting too expensive and I was at least using that regularly!
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Just stated using Revanced Extended YouTube. One of the best apps there is. Makes everything so much more convenient and with zero cost.
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Anybody on this thread on iOS, check out Vinegar. It’s a Safari extension for YouTube that converts the YT media player to a generic iOS one, removing ads and allowing PiP and other stuff. Best 2-ish bucks I’ve ever spent.
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Oh no. Anyway.
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I got three months free and realised YT music was included and had everything I listen to on Spotify anyway so I cancelled Spotify and moved over, essentially I'm only paying about two quid a month to remove ads on YT which seems fair enough.
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I don't have to bother with ads on desktop, TV, phone, nor on my gf's devices. I don't have to find work around, use sideloaded apps or whatever. And youtube is by far and wide my most watched platform, has been for years.
It also includes youtube music, which has been my exclusive music platforms, either to play during work, household chores, on my phone or on my Google home, or in the car.
To me, it's not even a question if it's worth it. If anything, it's my Netflix, crunchyroll, hidive subs that I should drop. They are replaced way more easily
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The issue is, people are getting notices from Google for using ad blocker. Three strikes and you're not allowed to watch videos on that account anymore.
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I used a VPN to sign up and pay like $2.50 US per month for it. That's worth it for no ads to me.
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I get that. It's the only subscription that I pay for. But, I don't really watch TV/movies/sports. Every night, when I lay in bed the first thing I do is open YouTube on my TV. Everyone has a preference.
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I've pre-emptively raised my ReVanced usage to 100% so IDRC.
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Want to fight back? Ask a friend to delete google chrome, switch out of gmail and tell them why.
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Google can raise the price all it wants. I use newpipe. If google kills the API access, i'll use odysee.
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Newpipe doesn't use youtube's API. It scrapes html and is therefore not bound by Google's API TOS. Newpipe shouldn't be vulnerable to valid takedown requests
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I like Odysee but I really NEED to use YouTube to get a lot of things. I wish I could just choose my favorite YouTube channels and host their stuff for them on Odysee and then I would actually use it.
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I only had the lite version of premium so I could watch youtube adfree on my phone and tv, but then they started pushing shorts so hard I had to scroll past them to see my subscriptions so I cancelled. Using adblock in desktop browser now so I can block the shorts shelf.
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I feel like this is the best money in streaming. I mostly watch you tube, and primarily on the tv and phone in the app. Frankly I would prefer to have much more of the internet paid for with you know money instead of ads and not use a blocker.
You tube music also has a much better algorithmic playlist than Apple Music.
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Revanced is your new friend.
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Oh I thought about subscribing for a couple of months, then again I have cancelled Netflix because money is tight. Now I have another reason not to subscribe to YT Premium.
Thanks, Google!
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Christ. I am a premium subscriber for years but it’s always been on the edge of too expensive even as it is. They’re really pushing it.
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I cancelled yt music subscription today after hearing about the price increase. Musi is a much better iOS app than yt music anyway bc the interface is simpler and it actually lets me play all the music while yt music is like you can't play this song right now due to copyright.
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Ublock works great on a web browser but on a Google TV/Roku it's kinda useless.
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@Ludo They can put the blocker for add blockers back on to force users to start watching ads.
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F*ck no. I was finally seriously considering buying YT premium for Google not f**king anything up in the past few months, bringing back sort by oldest, and knowing I'm not part of the anti AdBlock trial to make their anti AdBlock efforts less effective.
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This is why I'm starting to use newpipe
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oooh I can feel something big is coming - them testing the anti-adblock and raising the prices at the same time. Spotify is going to be in a weird place for me if this goes through.
Youtube blocks adblockers ➡️ More people are "forced" to subscribe to Youtube Premium ➡️ Because of higher price that includes YT music, not sure whether I'll need Spotify too ➡️ Youtube wins
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This feels like they are trying to recover revenue lost from the NFL Sunday Ticket deal they made.
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I mainly use FreeTube on PC and NewPipe on phone, not to avoid ads, but I just find it a much nicer and more peaceful experience (free of recommendations, Shorts etc).
I actually do pay for YouTube Premium family subscription, but its mainly to protect my less tech-savvy family and friends from ads, and to avoid seeing ads on my Android TV projector.
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I wonder why would someone raise the price of product no one buys
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People actually pay money to watch YouTube? I thought that was some kind of elaborate practical joke
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If google adjusts creators revenue by 1/3 I'll pay that.
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I was grandfathered in from the Google Play Music days. I enjoyed being able to upload my CDs to my library. still locked in at $8 a month. no YouTube ads and no music ads.
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I was grandfathered into their oldest pricing model back when Google Play Music was at its peak, and now they're hiking my price too. I'll be glad to see the subscription go and use revanced, but I need a better music streaming platform that's 10 dollars or less
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So Canadians can expect 20$ a month now?
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Don't these companies realise they'd have far more subscribers if they weren't so fucking greedy... Newpipe & Libretube ftw👍🏼
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Depends on what metric you game. They can show the $/subscriber chart and it goes whooo
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Subscribers
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I work in a position responsible for decisions like this. They do AB tests to determine if the price change results in an excessive loss of subscribers. Usually the calculation is: if(profit increase loss from churn); proceed. They only exact price increases if their tests indicate they won't lose too many subscribers compared to the increase in revenue. That's why these price increases happen little by little.
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Oh so you were using YT premium before the increase?
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🤔..No...its always been overpriced..
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Why would you? Google still tracks the shit out of you even with premium, so you’re still the product, you’re just paying for the privilege of them collecting your data instead of blocking it with Adblock.
I’d consider premium if it wasn’t so absurdly expensive for what it is. So instead I use uYou+ on mobile and uBlock origin+SponsorBlock in browser. I’m a member of my favorite channels to support them, fuck YouTube/Google.
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Huh. I wonder if they will increase the grandfathered price I've been paying as a Play Music early adopter. Hope not, because at $7.99 it still feels like a pretty good deal.
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Nope
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Pro tip: Buy the family plan in Asia. It's like $5 a month here for 5 people
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And I'm pretty sure their youtube premium ads are going to be more annoying.
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I pay 12.99 and that was my max :( Gonna be hard pressed to cancel the subscription. Guess I'm going to learn how to use those workarounds and just save the 12.99. Well now 13.99 starting in September
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What's that? I couldn't hear you over revance
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Honestly, this is ridiculous. I'd consider it if this stopped Alphabet (Google) tracking/telemetry, and thus no ads on the entire platform. Though just for YouTube, and YouTube Music (a service I don't use, nor care for)... nah.
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I've cancelled my google subscription when they killed play music. Bunch of wankers. They went from one of the best tech companies to the worst in the span of ten years.
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I started several years ago with the YouTube Premium family plan. It gave me:
- YouTube Originals
- YouTube Music
- No ads
- Background playing
My kids are fine with it. It saves me and them a Spotify subscription. Having YouTube Originals disappear somewhat, lessened the value for me. Once the kids are not under my roof anymore, I'll have to rethink this subscription plan. But that will be in eight years, or so. In that time so much will change, it's not even worth thinking about it.
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Not OP, but i often watch yt on my smart TV. And my gf has an iPhone. I don't think there are easy solutions for this. So, hard no anyway
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Oh no!
Anyway
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People actually pay for this crap?
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So first.they butcher Google play music by making it YouTube oremtand now this. Fuck that. Unlock forever. And when it stops working I'll stop engaging. Sorry Google, but fuck you
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Is this their first or second price hike? I've had it since it was Red - I'll probably just hang in since there isn't a great alternative.
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Yeah and now I'm Gucci staying at 29,99 try per month paying with Turkish lira being in Poland and paying 4,50 zł instead of 29,99 zł. Very good deal google :)
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Are there any alternatives for ios ? I already use revanced on my android
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Pain
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I've also noticed now that the video quality option on some accounts requires YT Premium to watch in 1080 60
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If they made YouTube paid only and lowered subscription to $1-2/month I might consider.
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How do I have YouTube premium for $6.99/month then? The author states five years ago the price went to 10.99. I got premium 1 year ago.
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Sounds like the price for a student discount
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Yes that must be it.
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I would consider it for $6.99/month. Do you have a student account or something? The closest cost that I see online is the Student cost which currently says $7.99/mo which I am assuming is the newly adjusted price. The individual annual plan is showing around $11.66/mo.
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Price hikes suck but; I'm happy with YT premium, we watch a lot on TV (apple tv) and I skip between ipad and iphone every day. By all means if there's an EASY alternative that doesn't involve some janky bedroom api side loading jailbreaking shiz, i'm all ears though...
I had some crappy youtube thing on firestick before I upgraded to appletv and it was crap, ad free was nice but it was horrible and would always stop working in some form or fashion, it was a pain to maintain so I just paid for prem in the end.
I never watch on PC outside of short tutorial videos so browser addons are kinda redundant.
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Less than 1 year of premium can buy an Nvidia Shield that you can install any YouTube app you desire, including the ones with no ads and SponsorBlock built in.
Along with the fact that even when you pay for premium Google still sucks you dry for user data they can sell it’s not hard to see why people are completely unsympathetic to YouTube as a corporation.
They’ve also removed free features and locked them behind a monthly cost. Yeah nah, fuck Google.
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If i make a post about my business changing his prices wouldn't that count as advertising and spam? Why is this advertising being allowed?
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At this point subscribing to YouTube is just one of the dumbest decisions you can make.
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I pay for YouTube premium family as much as I hate doing it, mainly because of my step daughter. It's not easy to block YouTube ads on Roku, and my wife and I weren't a fan of the ads they would be showing before videos we would put on. She travels to her dad's place often so I have the family plan so no matter where she is she won't have to deal with ads.
Rather not be raising a child messed up by advertisements telling her what to think. When she gets a bit older and can understand what advertisements are I'll finally cancel, but she's very young and impressionable.
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@aggelalex As a person using YouTube Premium due to my family not understanding how to remove YouTube Ads from there devices, Yes yes it is.
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Honestly… YouTube Premium is just wasted money. It’s a difficult situation. You can watch YouTube for free and without ads already, by simply using a decent browser like Firefox and installing the uBlock Origin addon to block the ads. (Google is fighting adblockers and anything based on Chrome, so 90% of browsers out there will limit their functionality in the future, btw. Use Firefox or something based on it to keep at least a bit of your privacy and freedom of choice.) And you can even automatically skip the sponsorship messages in videos with Sponsorblock. But if you think you would support the content creators with YouTube Premium, think again. You’re mostly paying Google for their servers / platform. A platform that treats its content creators pretty bad, finds all kinds of ways to not pay them / reasons to demonetize their videos to grab 100% of the ad income and has become more and more privacy invasive and aggressive with ads over the years towards its users. And in terms of music, YouTube doesn’t license every single song individually from the musician. They just pay a royalty towards huge labels and companies like Sony, which in turn keep the absolutely most part of that for themselves instead of paying the artists. Yes, by watching videos for free with adblockers, content creators and YouTube aren’t being paid and in a way you are part of a problem. But consider this: Any subscription based content service like Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Premium starts by paying its content creators at least a bit of money, but uses bait & switch tactics to lower that payment per stream more and more over time. Once they have all the creators, music / content and viewers comfortably on board, they start grabbing the money for themselves. It’s a systemic issue with streaming platforms in general and always the short end of the stick for the very people who create the content that makes the platform successful and useful in the first place. And if you feel guilty for cutting off the often self-proclaimed “content creators”… YouTube has mechanisms in place to directly support them (while taking a cut for YouTube), like “super chats” and “super stickers” and most of them these days have a Patreon account for direct monetary support and sponsorships going on. But yes, only those content creators who actually offer quality content will benefit from these things, what about all the others, you may ask. Well, let’s be brutally honest. A whole lot of content offered on YouTube is bullshit. It’s either copying successful people’s video style, low-cost, low effort, low quality beginners stuff, clickbait, disinformation, mentally unhealthy nonsense, copyright infringing stuff, and these days even AI generated crap with no value. If all of that would stop being made because no money is to be made on the platform, we wouldn’t miss out on anything. True quality will always be supported directly by fans and sponsors. And as harsh as it sounds… the rest is obsolete and may fall victim to natural selection. Might even raise the quality of content on the platform overall. Feel free to pay for YouTube Premium, if it makes you feel better. But know that absolutely most of it will only benefit Google. Personally, I don’t have the money to pay like 130 bucks a year just to feel like a good person. And those aggressive ads are bad for mental health and sometimes are a vehicle for malware, aside from the technology behind them absolutely shredding your privacy. I’m having none of that. I’ll watch that stuff with adblockers as long as it works, and if that stops working some day, I’ll spend my time with something better, maybe going outside and touching grass or something.
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The only thing worth a YouTube premium subscription is probably the higher bitrate formats if you download/archive all the videos you care about. Latest version of yt-dlp gives you access to those (except the highest audio quality format, I think it was 256kbps AAC), but this will probably be patched sooner rather than later.
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And also the music streaming service you get alongside it, and seamless downloads on mobile, and background playback on mobile, and...
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That's pretty much implied in my message with the 256 kbps AAC which I believe is what youtube music is using (format id 141).
Downloads and background playback on mobile is already possible,
Whatever I don't even care what you guys think anyway, I gave my opinion, you don't like it, that's fine.
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I almost never watch YouTube on my computer and it is almost always used on my TVs by my family. YouTube premium is probably the most useful streaming sub I have.
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If everyone was like you, YouTube wouldn't exist and all those creators wouldn't be able to do what they do.
Things have costs. You thinking that you're entitled to people's labor for free makes you selfish and entitled, not smart.
"People who actually pay for food when it's possible to just shoplift from grocery stores or dine and dash are idiots!"
Obviously digital content isn't directly analogous to physical theft, but go ask your favorite creators if they'd be okay with all their revenue going to zero.
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That's a wide brush you're painting with.
YouTube is the largest repository of information and entertainment in the world and it isn't cheap to run. I also want to support the small creators that I watch so that it remains a viable income stream and they keep serving me content I consume.
Fuck a price hike and fuck corpo google shit but this is still a steal for my personal watching habits
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youtube has premium?
812 comments
Does…. Any one, actually, you know, subscribe for YouTube?
I have a YouTube Premium subscription
Why
How does it compare to a Netflix subscription, or whatever you got?
Ditto. It is my most used subscription.
I watch more YouTube than cable (never) or Netflix (maybe one binge a month).
I use it for music in the car and at work.
I play audio from some sciencey channels while I try to goto sleep.
I’ll probably keep paying. I do get value out of it.
You should do an AMA
you hopefully mean you had a prem subscription, the more people quit because of price policy the better it will be for everyone
out of all the subscriptions, it's probably the best one. you can get youtube for free but either you're gonna get ads or you'll block them, and the creators you like will start seeking other forms of revenue that are just as/more annoying, or just quit.
yt-premium makes youtube an actually nice experience and keeps money flowing to creators. There's a limit to how much that nice-experience is worth but it's better than paying for netflix, and a bunch of netflix execs get paid, and the creators don't. then the show you like is cancelled and removed anyway.
I fee like premium is really the only way to make youtube more sustainable for content creators and the platform alike. However, youtube has currently deemed that demonetized videos should lose all youtube premium revenue. That’s incredibly stupid.
Imagine if premium revenue went to creators you watched, regardless of monetization status. Premium subscribers would be highly sought after for content creators, since it’s a more reliable revenue source that gives them the freedom to make what they want. It’s good for YouTube/google too because thats less reliance on advertisers.
It could use some adjustments, maybe taking some inspiration from patreon.
Yea I've been kinda watching youtube through this whole social media moment, suspicious that they've successfully taken a middle road here that will probably last. Ads and profiteering? You bet ... but it seems that there's a monetisation model for "creators" that kinda works (though I'm not sure at all about that). And so, for anyone that actually wants to make any sort of living doing the creative stuff that the rest of us lurkers want to consume, the inevitable question of how do you live within capitalism seems to have an answer of some sort in youtube while all the other platforms perhaps don't have healthy or appealing answers.
As for the fediverse, I think there's a massive opportunity for donations and crowd funding to become a much more central and normal aspect here so that making some sort of living by contributing to and being a part of this space is actually viable. Even some sort of subscription model for platfroms that are essentially non-profit creator-driven would make a lot of sense here.
That's a problem that goes beyond any single platform though, and at the moment, cross-platform or fediverse-wide work seems to be lacking behind a little bit.
Unlock origin on the desktop, brave browser for mobile yt seems to work fine at not showing ads
I do, you get Youtube Music as well and no ads, which is a great combination.
YouTube music is superior to Apple Music and Spotify. Change my mind.
YouTube music is pretty great. I've got it through revanced so it's free, but being able to find random playlists is a huge plus.
Yeah I do.. family plan so split the cost with the fam. I find it worth it. But the price increases are certainly concerning. If it keeps going up I’ll drop it.
The combo with YT Music is a good deal.
I primarily watch YouTube on tv, it is my most used video streaming platform, so yes I do. As does all my friends.
Yes, a family plan makes it cheaper. You won't see any ads on your devices, from your TV to your PC, and you can listen to YouTube videos even when your phone is locked. It also includes YouTube Music. It's a great deal, and I'm not sure why some people don't see it that way. Sure, you could get a different YouTube client for your phone, install an ad blocker on your PC, block ads on your router to get rid them on your smart TV, and listen to music on Spotify for free. But the value of a good service is that you pay a reasonable amount of money and get all these features without any additional work on your part.
If you already have a paid spotify/apple music subscription, and already have a buttload of streaming apps subscription (netflix, apple tv, etc), suddenly the prospect of adding $13.99 youtube subscription into your list of monthly subscriptions seems a lot less appealing.
Out of all the streaming services I pay for I get by far the most value out of yt premium, I probably spend 10x longer watching yt vids compared to movies and TV shows, and it has a dedicated music app that links nicely with my android auto.
I do. I watch a ton of YouTube. Revanced and NewPipe are rad but there's no effortless way to have an adfree experience on the TV.
OP here. I do in fact confess that I share a YT Premium subscription with a friend, though I myself eschew the bog-standard YT apps with those patched using Revanced Extended just because of long-standing QoL issues on said regular apps.
Yeah, got YouTube music after they shut down Google play music. All my friends dog on me for not having Spotify but not having ads on iOS is so nice. I tried it once without youtube premium subscription and idk how people can sit through advertisment hell for every video.
Also having the creators I watch get a larger share of the YouTube money pie cause I watch them as a YouTube premium sub is a nice feeling too.
That being said though, I'm on a family plan and not this specific plan that got its price raised (although I'm pretty sure the family plan prices have also gone up recently if I remember right).
Subscriber here. I use YouTube pretty much all day long. I usually have it playing something for background noise while I'm working. I've got a family plan with 4 other people on it, who all also get the benefits of ad-free viewing.
I also use YouTube on several devices of my own. TV, PS5, phone, tablet, three laptops... Trying to manage adblockers on all of those is such a pain in the ass. I'll never go back to troubleshooting Pi-holes and adblockers and adblocker-blocker-blockers. It's an objectively worse experience having to manage all sorts of goofy tools that keep getting circumvented by Google every week.
Also, the content creators I watch get paid for my views. I spend hours watching these people's content, so making sure they're getting paid means something to me.
I do, and YouTube is my primary Media consumption for both video and music.
That said, I have the family plan which went from $15-23 back a few months ago and it was difficult to keep. I actually cancelled it and used Spotify and some of the available ad-blocking apps, but ultimately didn't like Spotify, so I came back.
If it were to go up again anytime remotely soon I'd be gone.
I actually dropped my other subs (Netflix, Deezer) in favor of the YouTube family plan. My kids watch a ton of Minecraft vids and I don't really care to have them digesting all those ads. My wife also uses it a lot and I get a music service that just works with all my casting devices flawlessly.
I also love the ad free experience when I use a how to video etc.
I strongly dislike ads, but want to support good platforms and content creators. I eagerly waited for it to become available in the Netherlands back when it was still called YouTube Red. I subscribed the day it became available.
Ethical ad free YouTube: you support creators and the platform that hosts them, much better than through ads.
Too bad most videos now feature sponsored segments so creators are effectively double dipping in my premium support and advertiser money. That is honestly more annoying. I have more respect for creators who have Patreon and don’t feature sponsored content.
I couldnt agree more. The money has to come from somewhere and i'm not watching any ads so it's the obvious solution. I frankly just use sponsorblock so it autoskips the sponsor spots. But the whole thing is just absurd tbh.
I have one through my legacy Google Play Music subscription. I get YouTube Music and YouTube Premium for $7.99/month
Yup. YouTube is most of what I watch.
I pay ~£1 a month for it by 'being Argentinian'.
This is on top of already using ReVanced and SmartTube because I actually use the download feature of YT Music.
I do but I got it „on my holiday“ in India
Question for you: I looked into trying this approach myself, but Google would not accept my non-Indian payment information.
As it happens, they also refused to take my payment information when I visited Argentina and Turkey, too.
How did you do it?
I did, sorta.
I subscribed to Google Play Music All Access from day 1, because (at the time) it was like Spotify but also allowed me to upload my own music. I added a family plan when that became available for my friends/family who wanted it as well, and was grandfathered into that price when GPMAA eventually turned into YouTube Music, which was also bundled with YouTube Premium. Ad-free YouTube isn't something I specifically sought out but it was bundled into a service that I was using as a perk.
I kept that subscription going at the grandfathered rate until I got an email from Google one day informing me that they were increasing the price, which was last October, and would only allow me to keep the grandfathered cost for an additional 6 months before hiking me up to the new price. That would bring me from $14.99/mo to $23.99/mo, so I said "fuck that" and canceled. The service only got worse after they killed GPM anyways.
MAN I miss Google play music. Uploading your own music was lit
I sub from Turkey, or whatever the new name is, for barely more than $2pm for a 6-person family plan in Australia.
I've had it for a few years. I watch a ton of YouTube via Chromecast. I also use the music service every day. For me it's a good value.
I tried a free month, but it really didn't tingle me. I still prefer Spotify to YouTube music.
I want to but the price is to high for what they're asking for. I could have gotten myself a subscription for crunchy roll or Netflix with the money they're asking
I have a premium family membership and I pay around 18 bucks and allows 4 people into the membership I think.
This includes youtube music, which I use to upload my music and play it anywhere.
I do! Would probably give up my Netflix subscription before YouTube to be honest. As a family, we spend more time using YouTube than most other streaming services.
Yep, I watch YouTube all the time, and use it for music, so I could cancel Spotify.
I do, YouTube is my most used video app and I pay for a family plan
I used to when I used have it when subscribed to Google Music—which was amazing but then they tried to replace it with YouTube Music and yet another big amazing Google product died—and there was no point anymore.
I've considered it to stop ads on the TV app, but always thought it wasn't worth it. I can't even be bothered ad-blocking the network to include the TV, so raising cost of Premium now may as well make the product cease to exist in my mind.
Yep. Between YouTube Music and watching stuff on my TV it’s probably the most used subscription I have.
Yep, Family Plan here as well. It’s 4+1 of us, we all watch YT pretty much continuously at different age levels (two adults, one teenager and one preschooler), and since there was one extra seat left grandma also got ad free experience on her mobile. All 5 of us are also into different kinds of music so having access to YT music is also huge plus. The only other subscription I don’t mind paying for is Amazon Prime, for obvious reasons. Netflix, D+, Apple TV+ and such got the boot long time ago, with no plans to resubscribe any time soon.
Yes, the whole family watches YouTube on the TV, on the iPad/mobile phone apps, that it's worth it not to see the ads there, plus background play of audio, plus the whole family can stream their music from YouTube Music so no need for an aditional Spotify subscription.
Anyway, I just wish they'd remove the sponsor stuff on the apps like SponsorBlock does on the desktop for me.
YouTube has the creators I actually want to support. I don't mind paying for all the hours of content I'm getting for it
Yep. I watch more YouTube than TV. Once you get a curated list of channels set up, YouTube is great. And I don’t like ads.
People with overpaid white collar jobs do that plenty and there are plenty of them who will pay probably up to $50 a month or more. Youtube is already testing predatory measures to make chrome users ditch adblockers by giving out warnings to people who use them. Many more will go Youtube Premium in the near future because of such measures and Youtube will keep ramping up prices of course.
So you are pissed off that people are actually willing to pay for service? Youtube hosts millions if not billions of videos and streams them to billions of users, dozens of times a day and they do all this essentially lag free. That infrastructure is not cheap.
Additionally youtube actually shares their premium revenue with content creators allowing people to actually make a successful living with their creative pursuits and you control how that revenue is shared by which videos you watch.
i pay for youtube premium, i don’t like seeing ads on my phone