I’m certain Google execs think the YouTube Premium + YouTube Music bundle is generous and fairly priced. It’s not.
It’s nearly a year on since YouTube raised Premium’s price from $11.99 to $13.99. From that point on, YouTube killed its short-lived Premium Lite experiment, ensuring you had to pay for Music in addition to Premium.
Google then ended its grandfathered YouTube Red plans at the beginning of 2024, so people used to paying $8 or $10 suddenly had their bills skyrocket. Finally, it spent this year finding every possible method of counteracting ad blockers.
I’m a bit late to the discussion. Since the price hike, I scrounged a year or so of free YouTube Premium thanks to free 3-month trials from various Android phones, tablets, and watches. Now that they’ve run out, I’ve grown accustomed to seeing an ad every 10 minutes or less, or if I pause too long and the page auto-refreshes, or if I scroll back to check something and hit an ad checkpoint.
YouTube doesn’t care how obnoxious the experience is for everyday viewers. It wants to annoy us into giving Google money and enhancing its bottom line. The problem is how much they charge.
Let’s do a little comparative exercise. Most streaming platforms now offer a low-tier ad option, followed by an ad-free upgrade. So, how much does each platform charge to remove ads?
- Prime Video ($3)
- HBO Max ($6)
- Paramount+ ($6)
- Peacock ($6)
- Netflix ($8.50)
- Hulu ($10)
- Disney+ ($10)
- YouTube ($14)
Streaming companies have the same mandate from shareholders to maximize profits, and they’ve all begun to alienate long-time customers by geolocking accounts. They’re just as greedy for our money, in other words. And even they wouldn’t charge an extra $14 for no ads.
“Now hold on,” I can picture YouTube CEO Neal Mohan saying, “Those don’t give you a music streaming service in the bargain.” And that’s true! Most music streaming services cost about $11/month, including YouTube Music. So to spend only $3 more for no YouTube ads is eminently fair.
This assumes, however, that you care about YouTube Music. And I don’t. I had to use it while reviewing the Fitbit Charge 6 — which, annoyingly, blocks playback controls for every music app besides YouTube Music. Otherwise, I haven’t gotten my money’s worth.
It’s not that YouTube Music is bad. My coworkers swear by it; its inability to play local files is offset by the option to upload your entire MP3 library to stream online later. But its music recommendations haven’t felt as on point as what I’ve heard from Spotify and Apple Music. More importantly, I like being able to choose for myself.
Compare YouTube Premium and Apple One. Premium is $6 less per month, and some people might not care about Apple throwing in Arcade and a meager 50GB of iCloud storage. On the other hand, you aren’t forced to pay for Apple One; you can subscribe to Music by itself, or TV+ by itself.
If I could sneak into YouTube’s offices and send emails from Mohan’s computer, I’d mandate a few changes. For instance, I’d offer both monthly and annual Premium family plans, as well as a Google One bundle with ad-free YouTube. I’d find the latter much more compelling that the current Gemini Advanced AI bundle.
But those don’t qualify as true “mistakes.” Not expanding YouTube Premium Lite outside of Europe was a mistake.
If Google offered a $7/month ad-free experience, it would have a heck of a lot more Premium subscribers than 100 million. Yes, that might temporarily decrease the flow of its money hose to shareholders, but it would bring in more people than Android power users in the long run — users who love YouTube but don’t give a crap about its Music platform.
It could still try to upsell people to the main Premium tier with 4K videos, video downloads, background play, and Music. That’s a fair amount of value to double the subscription cost! But leave it for consumers to choose.
Instead, I’m certain Google will keep YouTube Premium bogged down with an inflated price to keep Music’s subscriber numbers consistent. And since people can’t afford Premium at this price, they’ll grit their teeth and endure videos oversaturated with ads…until they jump to Instagram or TikTok for a less annoying entertainment fix.