YouTube Premium users across the globe are facing significant price hikes as Google increases subscription costs in over a dozen countries. This follows earlier price jumps in various regions, including the United States last summer. The latest increases vary by region, with some countries experiencing hikes between 30% to 50%. For instance, in Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy, the Family plan will rise from €18 to €26 starting November, while the individual plan will increase by €2 to €14.
Countries affected by these changes include Ireland, Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, UAE, Switzerland, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Colombia, Thailand, Singapore, Norway, Sweden, Czech Republic, and Denmark. Although most Reddit reports are from European users, the price hikes also impact the Middle East, Colombia, Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia. YouTube had already raised its subscription prices in India by 15–20% in late August.
Remember: Everything premium offers used to be included for free
Except youtube music, I guess
SpMp is the best
The whole reason I got on YT Premium was because it was free with Google Play Music. I have real issues watch non-Premiun now, because I’ve always disliked advertising methods. (Not so much th ads, which can be entertaining, but just being shown content I didn’t request instead of the content I did request.)
RIP Google Play Music. The best music service to ever exist.
YouTube Music Revanced or Innertune (on fdroid)
Get the RiMusic app. YouTube music without ads.
What does YouTube music have that regular YouTube doesn’t? I have a ton of playlists on YouTube for music. Everything is on there.
The awesome algorithm for recommendations on YouTube was turned off to prevent fake news bubbles. This means that when you listen to a song and want YouTube to create a Playlist with similar artists for you, this doesn’t work anymore. But this function does still work with YouTube music.
Interesting, thanks.
Better quality and nicely sorted discographies
The nice thing about hiking your prices by 50% is that unless a whole third of your users quit, you haven’t lost anything.
you haven’t lost anything
Apart from all future customers that will now choose another service
That’s the good thing about a monopoly. You don’t have to worry about customers choosing another service.
You don’t lose anything for the moment, but it might come back to bite you later regardless. Because Youtube needs to grow until the end of times but can’t, it will end ugly one way or another. It’s more of a symptom of a bigger problem than an isolated, ‘smart’ business decision.
Yeah they are continuously slowing down Firefox and I see a future where I will simply stop using YouTube.i thank them in advance for when that day comes
More and more I try to find my entertainment elsewhere. I am slowly, but surely, migrating away from youtube (and google in general).
Do you know of a good free alternative to YouTube? Preferably one with a smarter algorithm that doesn’t just feed me the same boring bullshit over and over again?
Yes I like cars, computers, and video game history, YouTube, but I like other things too, you know. I wish there were a way to view other people’s YT homepages so that I can find something new to watch.
My usage of Youtube slowed down considerably when the algorithm stopped giving me anything new. I’d end up asking friends and people on social media about their own favorite videos and channels, just to get something interesting.
Whoever is designing these algorithms seems to be forgetting that our brains crave novelty. If we’re not getting it, we’re going to feel bored and start looking elsewhere.
I can’t wait for google to crash and burn. Bring back GeoCities and Netscape navigator.
Like Reddit dying after the API incident?
Just like Reddit, Google are going nowhere; sadly.
Google is having problems, they can’t make profits anymore. Its different because reddit was never profitable, but googles been profitable for years.
Edit: I said they can’t make profits, but what I should have said is they can’t innovate and produce new value, they can only cut expenses and squeeze consumers with subscriptions and advertisements in order to remain profitable. Eventually there won’t be anything left to cut and will then cease to be profitable. Google is on the decline.
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My first comment wasn’t rude, but I’ll concede that my second one was because you incorrectly assumed I was calling out something about your psychology.
As for the information you provided, nothing in there hinted at Google failing as a company and more just highlighting some of the failings of recent times.
“You made me be rude after I insulted you and you called me out on it”
Leave me alone. I’ve wasted enough time on you. You clearly have your mind made up and can’t even comprehend why someone would be skeptical of a company that is driving away its users and advertisers, of which I provided many examples. I wrote several paragraphs supporting my argument, and several sources. You responded in seconds with two sentences. Hopefully you wise up before taking a bath on whatever your investments are. I wish you all the best in life, but this is finished.
I never said that and I never insulted you in the first comment. I used the word hopium which is pretty common word to use these days.
For what it’s worth I apologise if you misinterpreted my initial comment and you feel offended as that wasn’t my intention.
Anyway have a great rest of your day and let’s draw a line under this.
bring back web 1.0 because web 1.0 was superior.
I have been saying this for years
There’s a neocities project… As for Netscape… I think SeaMonkey is still active?
Eh, I don’t need Netscape, but I need Firefox to not die/turn into AI spamware. I’m also excited about Servo, hopefully that becomes a project in its own right.
🤩
Youtube doing what I told every Premium adversary they would logically do after dumping more and more ad space onto the site. And to make Premium look worth the price, they’ll continue to shove more ads in your face just before, you guessed it, doing another price hike. Rinse and repeat. Premium users are strong drivers of this enshittification so I will continue to call them out on it whenever they tell you to join the scam as well. I’ll stick to my ad blockers.
And that, kids, is why you should pirate. Paying customers are restricted and being ripped off. Piracy gives freedom, it pays off, it makes sure you dont have to agree to stupid user agreements which take away you rights. Make sure to support your favorite creators though, through other platforms like Patreon. Don’t take the money away from them. Just take away the power and control away from the evil mega corps like Google and Meta.
You don’t even need to pirate, just use an ad blocker and support your creators directly. My perspective is that, unless you agree to their TOS, it’s on them to prevent any activity that’s unprofitable to them, and so far, uBlock Origin on Firefox works fine on YouTube directly.
Take what you would’ve spent on YouTube premium at a more reasonable price and send that to the creators you follow.
Just Vivaldi browser works too. On your phone I recommend grayjay.app
Use NewPipe if you’re on Android.
You’re welcome.
Firefox + uBlock Origin already does it too. No ads, and I can listen even when my phone is locked.
Tubular if you want a newpipe fork that also includes Sponsor skips!
Or NewPipe SponsorBlock(Obsolete, see below) Or FreeTube for AndroidThat’s been discontinued, Tubular is the active fork.
Thanks for pointing that out! 🙂👍
FreeTube for desktop.
There is an Android version as well
I really like Grayjay, also on Android. The nice thing is it also supports other sources, so you can watch Odysee, Rumble, Nebula, Peertube and others on it. If the same video is on multiple platforms, it recognizes that and only shows one.
Just did cause of ur comment actually, thank you so much!
Any alternatives for iOS?
Using youtube with Brave Browser and AdGuard blocks youtube ads on iOS.
Started using YTLitePlus around a month ago, can recommend
I just checked and ublock origin is still free. What a relief
Plop plop fizz fizz.
Line must go 🆙
It’s so odd that a platform that relies so much on user content charges as much as or more than network streaming services. The market hold is leaking into it (and out).
I suspect the user content is the root of the problem. 500 hours of video is being uploaded every minute. YouTube has to transcode and store everything, and be ready to stream it at a moment’s notice, even though the vast majority of videos probably get only a handful of views (if any). That’s a lot of unused resources that have to be paid for by subscribers and advertisers.
If they were to charge just a little for uploads then content creators would be more inclined to consider whether their upload is of interest to anyone else, and that might take away a lot of the waste.
But then you potentially lose fringe interest videos which the creator makes for fun, only expects a thousand views from people with similar fringe interests and isn’t interested in being paid
And for that, PeerTube exists. They can also host their own if they want, which works great for things like family videos or instructional videos for niche B2B products.
I’m thinking they would upload occasional videos to YT to advertise the alternative channel.
Even something as small as $1/video/year would be totally reasonable, and that can be waived once you become a partner or whatever. Maybe also make the first 10 videos free or something.
Indeed
relies so much on user content
Does it? I mean, it hosts user content but it doesn’t really monetize that. YouTube relies on creators, and it pays them.
Creators are users. I think the OP is saying they rely more on smaller shops than large media orgs, which is opposite from big streaming services. Then again, some YT creators are pretty large.
I feel YT users and creators are separate groups of people.
Tiktok has more overlap.
I’m slowly using YouTube less and less. The experience is worse because of the ads and Premium costs.
Woah. I just cancelled my subscription last week because it’s too expensive, and now they raise the prices further. Guess they really don’t want me back.
They don’t. They probably raised the prices just so you’d quit.
I knew it!
People pay YouTube instead of using an adblocker?
Please tell me a simple, idiot-proof way to block YT ads on all devices incl. Mobiles, Shield etc. that doesn’t require something complex like piHole, works outside the home (family’s phones etc. ), and doesn’t risk blocking stuff it shouldn’t. That’s my trouble. Premium solves all of that, while bringing other small benefits. Maybe there’s a better way.
Easy peasy. Lemon squeezy.
Firefox-ublock (even better on Linux but not required)
Revanced for mobile.
Pihole doesn’t stop youtube ads anyhow.
And Smart Tube Next for Android TV devices.
OP just needs to switch to Linux and set up a pihole and teach his entire family to do the same.
Easy peasy.
I’m in the same boat, but I think this hike still will make me cancel my family plan. Less time on YouTube is probably good anyway.
Creators get way more money with Premium viewers than ad-based ones, or at least it used to be that way.
I use the PS5 to watch YouTube on the TV, no way around the ads there. But no way in hell I’m paying them!
Thank goodness for mute buttons.
Revanced.
Grayjay
Can’t wait to see this bubble burst.
