I am nearing the end of my 30-day YouTube Premium trial period, and to my surprise, I am strongly considering renewing it.
It’s a long story, but I was working with someone and had to download their video. The video was only up for a short time as a private listing, and wouldn’t be public for a few days. YouTube said I had to sign up for a Premium trial to be able to download the video, and so I did.
YouTube ads are obnoxious. Sometimes the duration, frequency, and ad count is incredibly bothersome, and there are too many ads of offensively awful sound quality.
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I never signed up for the 30-day trial before, simply because I thought $12/month would be a waste of money.
I tend to listen to YouTube videos in the background, and the ad-free experience has been exceptionally pleasing so far.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised, as I opt for ad-free streaming subscriptions for just a few dollars more. Every time there’s a hiccup where an ad break would be, I smile to myself, knowing the extra premium has been well-spent.
I’ll be doing a lot of computer work these next two months, which means a lot of background streaming – shh, don’t tell my boss. Unskippable ads and mid-stream injections will add up.
I suppose this is exactly what free trials are for, and not how I treat them as free pre-subscription periods.
$12/month seems a little excessive, but I might pay for another month and see how it goes.
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Just me
I’ve had it since Early 2020 after a free three months as a YTTV subscriber. I can’t imagine not having it, so many ads many political or just of no interest at all to me. If I didn’t have it, I’m not sure I’d watch YT much at all.
Luke
Agreed. Plus having the ad-free music is great.
Ben
Same. Have had YT Premium for years now and the random times I get logged out or use a different computer I forget how much I hate the ads.
You can also download content with YT Premium for plane rides, which is a big benefit for frequent travelers.
Mike
Just use an ad blocker because you’re not actually supporting creators as much as you think you are.
MFC
I think I worked it out to where I typically get about $.005 per click/$5 per 1000 people. Some videos are more, but they generally attract less people anyways. Since ad blockers don’t work in the app and there aren’t very many people using a computer to watch youtube, it’s a small amount of lost revenue. And I care more that a viewer doesn’t waste more of their time than I get half a penny. I’d still do youtube videos even if I didn’t make anything (I typically don’t anyways), as it’s just a hobby and I like to share information.
MFC
I am actually a small-time you-tuber myself, and have deleted the youtube app on my phone. It wasted sooo much of my time, or rather, I did. Just too much access to a pretty decent algorithm that can lead you down a very deep, albeit interesting, rabbit hole.
So I have premium, but don’t use it. And the times when I am looking something up, I am typically on my mac where I have Ublock Origin installed, so premium doesn’t do much for me anyways.
However, if you only watch on your phone, don’t mind letting your soul get drained from your body, or you have the self-control to put it down (even though that thumbnail looks pretty intriguing), then youtube premium is definitely worth considering.
Tom
Same
D Watson
With articles like this, you should be getting it free already..
Stuart
Is that good or bad?
Yes, it’s unusually off-topic, but one line in a misc. catch-all post turned into 2 and then 3 paragraphs, and it seemed too out of place for a quick side note.
Adam
I waited until October to activate my 4 months free on my new phone, in order to get through most of the cold months with it. Only been a couple weeks and don’t think I can go back to waiting for the ‘skip ad’ button.
Carlos
You can also download the AdBlock extension for Chrome. Ad-free, for free.
Drew M
I haven’t seen ads for years!
:^)
Bonnie
Ad-blocking is also available for Firefox on mobile. I prefer to support the creators directly rather than filter it all through Google’s gaping maw.
Parke
This just convinced me to activate the free 3 month trial I skip every time I open YouTube.
Jef
If you use a andriod tv device, get Smarttube installed. I’m using a cheap sub $30 Onn device from Wal Mart and it does 4k.
On my cell phone I’ve got Vanced, but I’m not sure it it is still avaliable anymore.
Stuart
I mainly use a Windows PC.
Seahawk
Ive had it for a few months now and love it. There’s so much good content on Youtube and using Youtube Music along with Youtube Premium is a no brainer for me. They also have some free movies on YT.
Surprisingly, YouTube music is a really good service and I switched from Spotify and Amazon Music.
Bob
I have a love hate relationship with YT. Love the wealth of free knowledge/ ideas/ skills shared. Hate the censorship. Liked it much more in the early days of anything goes, if you don’t like it don’t watch it time frame.
In regards to Stuart’s post I just hit the refresh button for the first one. Seems to be about 3 seconds vs the 5 for ad skip. But the ones mid video get me. Not worth reloading the whole video vs 5 second skip. Still not paying YT or anyone else for 5 to 15 seconds tho.
I like “noise” in the background as well. Sadly my favorite local rock station went off air 2 years ago. I liked the DJ personality’ and small talk. The ads were admittedly a bit much at times (mid mornings) but the morning show was funny as hell and my most listened time/prime shop time was late evening so it wasn’t bad ad wise at all. Plus they were local businesses so if it was something I needed it was close by vs the national ads. Occasionally a funny ad would come up or the DJ would read the ad and it kinda all blended in.
I tried playing long format podcasts off YT but I find I have to pay too close attention to follow along. Usually not feasible for me in the midst of some project donning and doffing ear pro. Pretty good for long drives tho. Still not as fun as rock music.
Probably should buy a music streaming service sub. However I miss the local DJ/regionally tailored program. Yup I know that’s old school
and a dieing breed but I like what I like. Dogs playing poker jokes are welcome 🙂
MM
Agreed 100% with your first paragraph. The amount of knowledge available is absolutely amazing, it doesn’t really matter what topic you might be interested in, you can get on YT and have world-class experts show you how its done. The censorship has really rubbed me the wrong way though. It’s not that I was into “extreme” content, but rather youtube’s censorship rules seem extremely inconsistent. There is plenty of highly offensive content still up, and meanwhile plenty of excellent videos have been taken down, shadow-banned, or demonetized because of some silly technicality.
I’m well aware that Youtube is a private company and thus is not subject to the first Amendment. The law isn’t the only issue here. Years ago, one of Youtube’s executives–if I am remembering correctly it was CEO Salar Kamangar–went on camera touting how Youtube wouldn’t interfere with the content of videos and all the freedom was supposed to lie with the creator. After the so-called “Adpocalypse” in 2017 all that went out the window and Youtube went back on their word.
TonyT
YT is also full of videos by people who think they are experts, but aren’t, so as always, watcher beware.
Note that private censorship can violate the 1st Amendment if the government forces it, or the government coordinates with a private company, or the private company is a common carrier (like telephone companies).
TonyT
Don’t forget that a lot of radio stations stream, so they’re available out of area, and look for non-commercial radio stations.
Out here in the Bay Area, we have excellent non-profit classical (KDFC, run with USC’s KUSC) and jazz (KCSM, run with the College of San Mateo), all with good DJ’s. I don’t know if there are any similar rock stations.
Munklepunk
Have you tried tunein radio? Sounds like it would be your thing.
Tim D.
Almost no one I know pays for premium, or would be willing to for $12/month.
This seems like one of those situations where they’d make more money selling it at a more reasonable rate. I’d be curious to know what they’re making in ad revenue on your average user.
Eric
I’m not sure what YouTube’s revenue off of it is. But I know that Linus from Linus Tech Tips has said on multiple occasions that the creators make far more money from their YouTube Premium viewers than their ad supported users on a per viewer basis.
SAMO
Good point. I would consider $5 a month but $12 is too much. I don’t watch it enopuh to justify that and do not use it for music.
Kurt
I resisted purchasing it for a long while, but finally gave up due to the increase in mid-video ads. I haven’t regretted it. Now, I watch YouTube more than any other subscription service, and viewed through that lens, I find the cost to be very justified.
Mr. C
Ublock Origin + Ublock Origin Extras. Enable a great deal of the filters and blocklists.
Me: “Ads? What ads?” It’s a rare day that something sneaks through.
I’ve also heard amazing things about PiHole — which will be my fallback if Chrome decides to give the axe to adblockers. And you better believe millions of others will be doing the same if Chrome goes full dark-side.
At least with Ublock, I can selectively enable ads for sites where I want to see them. PiHole is a stand-alone device (or VM). I’ll just set it to block *everything* and never once look back. “See what you made me do? Better to get a little bit of something than a whole lot of nothing.
James+C
This post made me think of pi hole and I wondered if anyone would mention it. It’s one of those things I need to sit down with for a few hours and figure out but I think it will be worthwhile.
Imagine blocking ads on any device connected to your home network: computers, iPad, phones, smart TVs – everything. Sounds amazing.
Mr. C
Add in a VPN (not one of those that you see advertised, but one that dumps you INTO your own network as if you’re sitting on your own wifi at home even though you’re 5,000 miles away)…
…and you can then access you Pihole anywhere.
It’s elegant living for a more civilized time.
Britt
I have Pihole running a a PI zero w, and while it does a great job at preventing ads, it does not block youtube ads since they come from the same server. I’ve been a YT premium subscriber since the beta days and still pay $7.99 / month.
S
I’ve got pihole set up, as well as AdBlock plus and ublock.
Pihole only stops ads served from specific providers/ip’s. So because YouTube serves ads from the same location as the video content, it’s impossible to block via pihole.
So my PC experience is 100% ad free, but my android or tv experience has ad’s.
s
The other issue right now is just getting a raspberi pi anymore…
Mr. C
Run it as a virtual machine.
PTBRULES
I have premium, and since I use Youtube 95% of the time to listen to long for podcasts, documentaries, etc, it’s great that I don’t have to have my phone screen on to save battery life, and no ads, especially in the middle of videos, is nice.
That being said, the amount of content on Youtube, being censored or suppressed, specifically Nick Rekieta (RekietaLaw) moving over primarily to streaming on Rumble, is really killing the value to me.
I really edging towards canceling premium at this point if Youtube continues on their current path and more creators quit Youtube.
JoeM
I kinda opted for the Premium Family Pack… because it just makes it easier to pay for, when I have several people who are not tech-savvy and are annoyed with ads. I don’t have to listen to whining or complaining, I just register them in my family circle and bam, they have premium like I do, and there’s no extra notices saying “Here is your Receipt” or “Your Payment was Declined”… one payment, less money than everyone paying for themselves, one less thing on my mind.
I admit… I don’t care about any of the features aside from the removal of Ads… but if I can get my head screwed on straight again, I may start a YouTube channel of my own, regarding some projects I’m working on, plus my work with Indigenous Advocacy and Decolonization. It also gives me a far more secure way to do updates for my friends and family about my health and wellness. But that won’t roll out for quite some time. I have too much to do. Too many projects to accomplish.
But I still recommend the family pack. Someone you’re close with is falling on hard times or something? Add them to your Family list, and take it off their list of worries. Still their own account, still their own settings… You’re just paying for them to have the premium features that may help keep them sane while they’re going through whatever they’re going through.
Patrick T
I used to pay for premium to remove the ads. It was amazing. Decided to remove a few things from the monthly budget and this got the ax.
I don’t use Chrome and the AdBlockers for Safari don’t seem to block the ads on Youtube anymore. I have found a great little plugin called Vinegar. It’s not an adblocker per se. It forces YouTube to stream the video using the system player instead of their proprietary player. The result is no ads. I’ve been loving it. I think it’s about $2. Buy once and use on Mac, iPad and iPhone.
The only downside that I’ve found is that Youtube doesn’t track my progress on videos the same way it did before. For me, it’s a trade off I’m willing to make.
:3
YouTube was imagined as a free platform, then ads were okay. There’s not good reason for blocking background or mini player.
Things like the functional but cease and desisted app, vanced YouTube, along with many others, give full access to all features except download, along with extra features not available on base YouTube, including sponsor skips, intro and outro skips, allowing you more content, less ads and promotional material, with options to turn these off or whitelist those you support.
Downloads? YouTubeto”insertfileformathere”, straight to phone or PC.
With their concept of payed premium for video quality, I’ll pass on their money hungry ways every chance I can and will support the work of those who make YouTube feel like it did when it began.
However if you do support YouTube and or your favorite creators, the same as those who pirate, if you enjoy what you receive, consider supporting the developers/hosts/creators.
Chip
As an individual who self-performs 90% of all maintenance, YT is an essential part of my toolbox.
Since I use my phone near the repair being made, an add blocker doesn’t work as well.
My sanity is worth the cost of 1 missed meal at a restaurant, so yes I pay.
Am subscribed to 2 content creators for less then a 2nd meal.
A rotation of channels playing in the back ground, are my white noise for a sleeping add.
I despise the censorship, but it’s the biggest information sharing platform around.
Since TV programming is filled with nothing of interest to me, I buy the seasons of the 4 shows I watch annually on Prime.
My service is 11.99 per month, 4 shows avg $15…so my entertainment package is about $200 per year.
Prime fee is absorbed into the savings on making 60% of my purchases .
Joel Spangler
If you use a VPN to connect to another country like India and then pay for your youtube premium subscription, you’ll find that it’s MUCH cheaper. Pay for a year, and it’ll be less than $2/month. There are sites out there that track current prices in other countries – looking like Argentina might have the best price currently at about 30 cents per month. Just search for youtube premium vpn cheat to get more information.
Wayne R.
In using YouTube (on Roku), I was amazed that, when watching mechanics fix stuff, the only ads for a long time were for Maybelline. I don’t use that stuff, thought Google would’ve realized that.
Now I’m amazed by the apparent bottomless pit of money being spent by two insurance companies. Over & over.
Might be time…
Pocket Handyman
If you’re a Mac user, here’s two products that will save you tons of time (and $$):
-A video downloader called ‘Downie’, which works both as a standalone app AND a browser extension (for both Safari and Firefox), which let’s you download just about ANY video from any website, even ones where you have to login (like YouTube)
-For Safari (exclusively, sorry other browsers!) an extension called ‘Dynamo’ which is not only the best ad-skipper I’ve ever used, it also let’s you control playback speed, to speedup or slow down as you need it, using very simple keyboard commands.
Dynamo is free, Downie is so cheap it’s ridiculous (US$20) and there’s a companion app called Permute for converting videos into many different formats.
Both work exactly as advertised. (I have NO affiliation with either of these developers or their products, just a happy customer, so I’m not making any $ by passing on this info).
Just thought I’d try to help.
Patrick T
Dynamo is showing up for me as $1.99. Same as Vinegar.
Ask an avid and longtime Safari user, I might need to add this to my toolkit. Thanks for the tips.
Pocket Handyman
Sorry, that’s my mistake, Dynamo is in fact $1.99, but it’s the best two bucks I ever spent for a plugin and saves so much time and frustration.
John
Like others, I watch ad-free at no cost. I use my iPad browser with an ad-blocker, and I AirPlay the result to my Apple TV. Takes an extra step to set up, but it’s better than paying Google more money. The thing that irritates me is that my TV provider is YouTube, and you would think that they would include the ad-free YouTube in the subscription.
MtnRanch
There’s no way YouTube makes $12/month/subscriber so you have to wonder why they charge that much to get rid of the ads while also giving them your identity so they can sell more accurate viewing info to their affiliates. Maybe that’s why they can charge so little in other countries.
$3-4/month would be much more reasonable. I can’t blame them for charging more if Americans are so willing to part with their cash.
Seems like Americans get to subsidize a lot of things so the rest of the world can have a free ride.
DR
That doesn’t make any sense. The reason Google/YouTube charges less in some countries is because in those countries people make far less money than we do here in the US. For instance, if YT tried to charge 12.99usd in India or Thailand or Mexico, NOBODY could buy a subscription because it’s 3x what they make for a day of work. It’s pretty simple when you think about it.
Nobody’s out to get you, bud. Nobody’s showing favoritism, Americans aren’t any better than anyone else, and in life everything is relative.
Stuart
The same is sometimes (often?) true for other types of digital products or services, such as video games.
Tim B.
The digital age has brought on all sorts of ‘regional pricing’ strategies… sometimes there are ways around it (like VPN’ing to get the different price, etc) and sometimes there aren’t… like DRM and ‘redeemable regions’ for video games, etc.
And it does make sense, to a certain degree, and that’s not in any way a political statement. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t chafe at those of us who live in a higher cost-of-living country yet still make close to the bottom of the wage averages… But such is the modern era. In some ways, the global economy is a double-edged sword…. reminds me of the ‘grey market’ for physical goods, before online sales and distribution became the norm vs. the exception. I remember having a list of things for a family member who would travel to Japan or other countries in that region for him to look for a local much better price =) Sometimes you win… sometimes you dont.
PETE
Brave browser on the computer and the iphone- no ads. Not to mention earing crypto while using it! Love it
XHawkeye
Another two thumbs up for Brave browser, it is the best browser for YT.
Also highly recommend 4k Dwnload to rip YT videos.
Dave S
I’ll second Brave. It is a Chrome clone (same base engine) that completely obliterates ads… and removes many trackers. I’ve been using it for a year or so and love it.
Tim B.
Someone commented about the ‘Family Plan’ above… I totally agree, that is the main draw for me. My family of 5 makes great use of it.
That said, I’ve been a subscriber for MANY many years (since “Google Play Music was a thing, and before… which was my initial reasons for joining so I could listen to just about anything, any time, selectively, without ads). Ultimately, Google consolidated services, and that got rolled into the Youtube Premium when that became a thing, and the Family plan was first launched. I believe, over the years, it has most definitely been worth it… but also keep in mind that it started at only $14.99/mo at its inception.
Fast forward to today (literally, less than a week ago)… Out of the blue, Google sends a message thanking me for being a loyal customer and family plan holder for so many years…. and at the same time notifying of a price increase. **TO $24 PER MONTH** (sorry for all-caps, but in this case, I think warranted… that’s an out-of-the-blue 48% price increase for me, and for no additional ‘value added’!)
Much as I love the ad free nature, the downloading ability, other things… when that rate change kicks in (April, for me), I’ll be VERY strongly considering cancelling. They had my business for about a decade… maybe, no more.
Troy
Yeah, I just got that email too, and it’s a ridiculous cash grab. I watch a lot of YT and am happy with the current price for Premium, but such a steep and sudden price hike with no additional features or benefits is really appalling.
Tool Junkie
I used it for 3 months free. Then they wanted $12 a month for all their services. I only wanted the videos ad free. $5 would have been reasonable, but not $12. I just mute my TV while they play the ads.
Scott F
Did not think about the VPNs for other countries, but I run the other questionably moral route – 30 days free per email address, of which I have about 25 and just keep incrementing. This will only work for so long, and it’s debatable if worth $12/month to deal with the hassle + losing channel subscriptions/history, but I tend to binge watch through my favorite channels and then just keep up on new posts, so not a deal breaker for me…
It is worth $12/month, and I will pay it when free trials go away. Worth not having ads, mid video are the ones that really tick me off..
Ellaro
I only pay like 3 to 4$ for a premium subscription for my whole family per month. If I was paying 11$ per person every month, I’d never subscribe to premium
RCWARD
How do you do that?
RCWARD
I listen to a lot of music on You tube and wouldn’t do it without the premium version. It’s kind of pricey at 15 bucks but well worth it for me.
Derek
I’ve had it for roughly 1 year, love it, wont go back.
Derek
I switched over many years ago from Spotify to (at the time) Google Music for this reason. Couldn’t see the difference between the music streaming apps so figured i might as well get the ad-free youtube as a perk. I no longer have patience to sit through the constant ads.
Rock Hound
I think at a minimum, it is a good buy until at least after the mid-term elections are over.
Munklepunk
It’s the only streaming service I actively pay for. YouTube is absolutely terrible about ads, and YouTube music is pretty dang good. It really does a good job with curated music, way better than Spotify.
EJ
If I had to cancel my subscriptions, youtube premium will be one of the last to be canceled.
For a monthly fee to remove all the ads across all devices of the whole family wherever we are, it’s well worth it.
Rob
you left out my main reason for paying for YouTube premium, the free YouTube music you also get. without the music I wouldn’t have it
Javier A.
I’ve been a subscriber for about a year now, and I absolutely cannot (and will not) go back to using YouTube with ads. I use it as white noise while I work in the shop, and not having the fiddle with a device to skip ads or start videos is worth the $13/month for me.
Andrew C
I try to see if any of my subscribed channels are on odysee/lbry before I watch them on youtube. Some will cross post to both. They don’t have ad’s on odysee so the content creators need to create their own advertising in video or otherwise ask or even require payment in LBC token for the content. I plan to slowly extract myself from all things google. Apparently they started censoring people’s personal files stored on G-drives. While I’m at it; I’ve replaced google searching with using presearch too. That was an easy switch to make. If you make an account you can earn the pre tokens while searching still as well.