The most recent YouTube downgrade is just history repeating itself ‣ Diverse Daily

Summary

YouTube Premium Lite offers an ad-free experience at $8/month.
As more ads are introduced, value may decrease, mirroring past Google service changes.
Premium Lite may act as a pipeline to full Premium subscriptions, impacting service quality.

YouTube Premium Lite is a scaled-down version of its big brother, YouTube Premium. The idea behind the two services remains the same — an experience without ads. Lite never promised to remove ads completely, but it did promise something in between not having anything and having a full-fledged subscription. When it first came out, I went hands-on and came away impressed with how much I liked it. I didn’t notice any intrusive ads, and although the initial blog post said I should see them on Shorts, I didn’t.

I was mostly looking for something that gave me a good experience watching on my TV since it wasn’t easy to use an ad blocker there. Premium Lite fits the bill nicely at $8 a month, but it looks like Google is already testing the limits of what it can get away with before alienating subscribers. While it still does what it promised, for the most part, cracks are starting to form. It reminds me a lot of what YouTube TV started as, and once the service grew to a big enough point, value slowly started to be stripped away. Nowadays, the YouTube TV price rivals cable, and that’s no good. I don’t want the same thing to happen to YouTube Premium Lite.

Free trial: 1-month free trial
Ads: Most content ad-free
Downloads and background play: No

YouTube Premium Lite removes most ads from YouTube for $8 a month.

I save hundreds a year with this specific YouTube Premium plan

Share your YouTube Premium membership with family members, and save a ton of cash in the process.

I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come

Things are already changing

5 YouTube Premium perks subscribers forget to use

Although there’s not a price increase yet, Google has already made the deal worse for Premium Lite subscribers. According to emails sent out to subscribers, more ads are getting ready to rear their ugly heads in the coming future. In my experience, I already had ads when watching music videos, so that’s not new, but the Shorts getting ads is a new one. Like I said, the blog post that announced Premium Lite said they’d be there, but the reality is they weren’t there until this email came. In that regard, I suppose you could say I was living on borrowed time, but it was nice.

The thing about Premium Lite is it’s already teetering on the line of value. For just a few bucks more, you can completely eliminate ads, get access to YouTube Music, and have the ability to download videos. I can’t lie, regular Premium holds a lot of value, and I think it’s easy to justify for a lot of people. Speaking for myself, I don’t use YouTube Music or download videos, so it’s worth it for me to save a few bucks. However, if Google keeps creeping in with more ads through the Premium Lite subscription, it feels like I’ll have to start weighing the full-fledged subscription again.

I can’t help but be fearful of what’s to come. I watched YouTube TV firsthand go from something jam-packed with value turn into something completely different over the years. I still enjoy YouTube TV, but there’s no denying that it doesn’t have the same value as it once did, especially when you look at the massive price difference from when it launched to where it is now. I’m not saying YouTube Premium Lite is going to do the same thing, but it already feels like it’s going down a similar road. There’s no telling what the service will look like even a year from now, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the initial intent feels intact.

I used to think YouTube Premium wasn’t worth it. Here’s what changed my mind

The value might be there now for YouTube Premium.

Google has a rocky history

Let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself

Google Search header image — Pocket-lint / Google

Pocket-lint / Google

While Google is one of the most popular corporations today, there’s still a graveyard of failed ideas. Stadia comes to mind as a recent example, but Premium seems like it’s going to avoid a similar fate. Premium Lite still has a reason to exist, but it does feel like it’s going to act as more of a pipeline into the more expensive Premium tier.

Google said as much in the blog post by revealing more Lite members upgraded to Premium subscriptions than the other way around. For what it’s worth, I bucked that trend by downgrading. YouTube is the number one streaming platform according to Nielsen ratings, so the company is rolling in money no matter how you slice it. Obviously, Premium subscriptions are more valuable than the Lite ones, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see Google start to dismantle the cheaper tier.

The one thing working against a theory like that is the existence of Premium Lite in the first place. There was no reason for Google to create a cheaper tier, but the company came out and did it anyway. I signed up for it as soon as I could, and while it’s already starting to lose some of the initial magic, I’ll stay subscribed as long as it continues meeting my needs. With the way things are going and coupled with Google’s history, I can’t bank on that lasting forever. The reality is that the traditional YouTube Premium subscription represents a lot of value, especially if you opt for the family plan. Having access to YouTube Music is a big deal for a lot of people, and it lets you cancel your Spotify or Apple Music subscription without missing out on a lot. Sure, YouTube Music isn’t exactly the same as those other services, but if you’re in it for music first and foremost, it’s close enough.

It’s nice to have the option to choose what I want from my subscription, but as more ads start to creep in, I don’t feel like that sense of choice will be there anymore. There’s still $6 separating the two tiers, so while that’s not a massive difference, it’s enough for me to stick with Lite. If the time comes and ads start showing up on all videos, just in a limited form, I think I’d make the jump back to the regular Premium. I imagine this is something Google wants to happen in the long run, but I’m still going to hold out as long as I can. Whether that’s a few months or a few years, it’s really tough to say at this point. I’ll just enjoy the ride while it lasts as that’s all I can do.