I’ve been on YouTube Premium Lite for several months now, and it’s been glorious, mostly because I consider it my primary streaming service. It even helps me go to sleep, despite the fact that screen time is normally a detriment. I’d drop all my other video services before ditching Premium Lite.
Unfortunately, there’s a reason why Premium (in one version or another) is so valuable. The truth is that Google has made the free version of YouTube increasingly painful, to the extent that there’s a night-and-day difference. As if that weren’t bad enough, it’s making it increasingly hard for creators to survive if they aren’t proven hitmakers. All this makes me think that within a few years, the service might be unrecognizable, or finally push viewers elsewhere.
How YouTube went off the rails
It’s more machine now than man
For those of you who spend more time on Netflix, HBO Max, or other platforms, the problem is advertising. This might not immediately strike you as a big deal, since ads are omnipresent in the streaming landscape, sometimes even if you pay to remove them. Hulu, for example, reserves the right to push pre- and post-roll ads to Premium customers for some shows.
The free version of YouTube is so chock-full of ads, however, that it seems engineered to wear you down. A pre-roll ad is virtually a given. From there, you can expect mid-roll ad breaks in just about any monetizable video over 8 minutes. This wouldn’t be such a bad thing if it weren’t for the fact that many YouTube videos are under 20 minutes, if not 10 or less — and you can easily encounter multiple breaks in longer content. Compared to other services, including other free ones like Tubi, you’re spending a disproportionate amount of time watching something unrelated to what you came for.
In many circumstances, Google’s algorithms can legitimately interfere with your lifestyle. If you’re trying to figure out how to reset your router, say, or fix a leak on your washing machine, you may have to wait through an unskippable 15- or 30-second commercial before you learn the answer. With sleep, ad breaks used to startle me awake, because there’s no governance over how loud ads can be. They even interfered with my breakfast and lunch routines. When it takes you 10 minutes or less to grab a bite, every minute of viewing matters.
Frankly, it feels like the Wild West when it comes to what’s allowed in ads, and how they’re targeted. Most of the ads I see are completely irrelevant to my interests, and every now and then, the service will jam a full-length infomercial into the mix. Who’s watching these? They didn’t make much sense when broadcast TV was popular, and they make even less sense in a world where you can easily switch to a completely different platform, or skip them a few moments in.
Paying to strip out ads via Premium instantly removes all of this friction. I can sleep peacefully, I can use YouTube as a handy problem-solving tool. But I wouldn’t even object to ads if they were served sensibly, like they used to be, or if I could count on ad blockers working. Blockers still exist — it’s just that Google has taken an even more aggressive stance against them, and when they do work, they can deprive your favorite channels of badly-needed income.
The squeeze on creators
Even some of the best can’t survive
Compounding the situation is that, as you’re probably aware, there’s a race to the bottom in content quality. Some monetized channels are nothing but AI voices and borrowed graphics, spouting low-effort or outright inaccurate material. That’s because the revenue split with creators has become so bad that even high-quality, well-known channels — such as Veritasium, PBS Space Time, and RedLetterMedia — have had to turn to sponsored segments or Patreon funding to supplement their income. Imagine how irritated you’d be if you were watching Frasier and Kelsey Grammer had to interrupt a scene to pitch Manscaped.
Things are only getting worse. Starting in February 2027, Google is raising the monetization thresholds for new channels. To get paid at all, you’ll need 8,000 watch hours over the last 365 days, or 20 million Shorts views over the last 90 days, on top of the existing 1,000 subscriber minimum. The company seems to think that brand partnerships and YouTube Shopping can compensate in some circumstances, but the truth is that this scheme penalizes creators who prioritize quality over quantity and still want to make a living.
Google does split Premium revenue with creators, but I have my doubts about how much money it can squeeze out of the public. I love YouTube because it caters to my limited time, and interests that just aren’t represented well elsewhere, such as EUCs and weightlifting. There are others like me, naturally – yet $9, $16, or $26 per month (depending on your plan) is a lot to ask from the average viewer if they’re already on the hook for multiple subscriptions. If YouTube is going to remain relevant, it needs to encourage quality content, and make accessing it painless with or without Premium. Perhaps there’s a way of encouraging more spending from advertisers — or diverting some of Google’s more extravagant spending elsewhere.
