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
What does YouTube music have that regular YouTube doesn’t? I have a ton of playlists on YouTube for music. Everything is on there.
Better quality and nicely sorted discographies
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.
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.
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.
ReVanced ❤️
just cancel all subscriptions. None of them are worth it
Bitwarden is worth it. (Yes, I know, I should self host it. I do, but I still see it as a good deal. Also Hetzner is a good subscription. So yes, some are worth it
What do you need that isn’t in the free version?
Plex
What?
Misread the comment
Authenticator. Also, I would like to support the devs. Running a server and developing the software itself is far from free.
Fair enough, but does having your passwords and 2FA on the same service not defeat the purpose of 2FA?
Good point. 2FA is quite useless if you have a randomly-generated 256 characters long password for every service. I guess Bitwarden is worth it for the advanced security reports (it costs them money for this) and supporting the devs?
You don’t need to justify a purchase! If you like the product, paying for it is ge best way to ensure it stays around.
Agreed:
-Bitwarden
-Storage Share
-ControlD
-Real debrid
Backblaze as well. Can’t believe they let me store 20TB of backups for $10/mo.
So, only cheap services are worth it?
Are there some expensive services that are worth it? not just that they increase their price just because.
Don’t get me wrong, I want more examples (and I am a happy subscriber of Real-Debrid for years already).
As I have said previously, Hetzner is most definetly worth it and it can be expensive. I can’t think of any more examples tho 😅
Kagi’s ultimate plan is $27.5 tax included. Easily the best subscribtion I continue to pay.
Nice example, thank you!
Well, I use what I need. I’m not going to pay an expensive service just because. For instance, I wouldn’t pay for Proton. It’d be quite useless (and expensive) for my use case. I do have a paid Zoho email account, tho.
That’s an insanely good deal! I should move pict-rs to backblaze on my Lemmy server
Better look at B2(also from Backblaze) as well. Way cheaper than S3.
By there site its more like $120 a month?
Just do the cheap unlimited personal plan and hook up a shit load of external HDDs to your PC. I have a system where my NAS syncs to my PC which syncs to Backblaze so I can sorta hack my way into unlimited NAS backup for $10/mo.
3-2-1 backup where the primary source of data is the NAS, on site backup is desktop PC external HDDs, off site backup is Backblaze.
So, steal everything or something else? Content isn’t free. The ad model exists, but only works if people see the ads.
If everyone blocks all ads, and doesn’t pay a subscription, how’s that work for those providing the service?
I’m not defending YouTube here, just curious what your solution is to have a service and not pay for it.
I do pay for YT family Premium in the US. I watch mostly YT, and it is my music streaming service. I definitely liked it more when it was costing me $15/mo for that and was mad when that went to $23. I even tried switching to Spotify and using ad blocking on YT. I didn’t jive with Spotify, and while ad blockers work for YT, it’s a bit of a pain installing them on TV boxes and managing subscriptions across devices, asking with which videos you’ve seen etc.
Youtube revenue in 2023 (before these price hikes) was 31.5 billion USD.
The revenue for the entirety of alphabet in 2023 was 307 billion USD.
Youtube alone generated 10% of the entire revenue of alphabet’s portfolio in 2023.
Yes, revenue is not profit, but I could not find profit figures for youtube.
Alphabet’s operating income for 2023 was 84.3 billion USD. Assuming a similar proportion of revenue to operating income (I know, hella extrapolating, but again no direct sources for youtube) that would put youtube’s operating income in the ballpark of 8 billion USD.
It’s not that they aren’t making money because people are “stealing” as you say from poor little indie company youtube. It’s just that they want more more more MORE MORE MONEY.
Because of course they do. It’s never enough.
Edit: because I forgot to link my source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204424000014/googexhibit991q42023.htm
YouTube is but one, and as I said while the story is about yt I was talking Mir in general. How do you pay for content/services in general?
Right now with via ads or a subscription.
Not op, but I think a solution would be having AI watch the videos and tracking what the people are saying, wearing, using etc and posting links to purchase those things in the description. They get a cut of sales and can also sell links for competing products if companies want more exposure. This could be effective and noninvasive. Give a cut to content creators and it may be even more effective.
How’s that work on tvs?
i meam the payment for a domain name is kinda worth it. as well as a functional vpn
Agreed. Mullvad is absolutely epic. A question: why do we have to pay for domain names? And why do some providers offer a domain at a lower price than others, while offering the same services? it doesn’t make sense to me, an explaination is welcome
a couple of reasons, some being that 1, ip addresses are limited on the internet, and making it free would instantly fill it up. another is that there is still some work involved,because once you register for a domain, internet service providers and DNS providers around the world need to also add your newly established domain to ip to their DNS so that people get redirected to your domain correctly. the domain endings also have a cost attached to them due to popularity and who is allowed to hand them out. e.g country related domains (e.g .kr for korea, .fr for france has their reasons to charge or without handing a domain out, but some countries may get lucky and happen to have a domain thats desirable (e.g Anguilla has .ai) and thus will charge more
you also want to prevent domain name ransoming. if domain names were free, there will be people registering for all domain names to use as bargaining chips against a person or company similar to social media handles
Because it’s a monopoly created by international agreement. It’s like a phone number - it needs to be routable in the system, but if you follow the standards, you can get integrated into the system as a registrar
The top level domains are owned by countries - the UK has .UK, the US has .com and .gov, the UK has .io (because they stole it), but most countries have just one. They charge a fee to register a secondary domain, and the registrar can charge whatever they want to their customers to register on their behalf
This is just the centralized system though - you could build your own, AOL tried to do that through “keywords” back in the 90s
I pay for my email (Proton) password manager (last pass), and VPN (nordvpn).
I’d say subs that maintain your privacy and security are well worth it - there is no such thing as a free lunch and instead the tech giants are dining out at the expense of users.
Googles ad monopoly needs to be torn apart. Because YouTube premium prices may actually represent what it really costs to maintain video sites like YouTube, but Google have managed to destroy all competition with the free model and now there is no one realistically able to compete on content or price.
Proton has a password manager and VPN. May be worth bundling over paying for all 3 separately
Sorry if you get this a lot, but have you tried Bitwarden? It’s been a while since I compared but last I checked I found it miles better than LastPass.
Or Proton Pass, they already use Proton for email
- Firefox + uBO
- NewPipe/LibrePipe/GrayJay
- FreeTube
They all are free, no subscription required
And sorry Apple users, I don’t know what option you have cuz I don’t use Apple.
Freetube doesn’t seem to work anymore (for me at least) as Google went hard on blocking all invidious instances and proxies…
Working fine on librewolf so far.
Change your API backend to LocalAPI in the settings. It still works that way on Freetube and Libretube
How do you do that?
Works fine for me
Which instance?
Local API, not invidious api
As an iPhone user I like to use YtLitePlus, it’s pretty much the same user experience as using revanced on android, maybe even a bit better. I’d like to have an alternative client such as NewPipe but hey, we can’t have everything.
reminder that firefox + ubo works on android too.
Also Revanced
iOS/iPadOS: Safari + AdGuard (+ Vinegar (optional))
macOS: Safari + AdGuard or Firefox + uBO or FreeTube
iOS user here, uYou++ is quite good, but only a mod for the regular YT app, not a complete alternative.
I switched from FF to librewolf. Less convenient, more privacy, no pesky G**gle partnerships, afaict.
Prob a reason to leave youtube
Only up to 50%? I would much appreciate 100%. That would make users rethink their subscription.
Paying for service? Why those savages!
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?
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.
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.
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’m slowly using YouTube less and less. The experience is worse because of the ads and Premium costs.
Out here on the high seas we have no gods and no masters.
lol and they’ll raise prices again next year. and people will complain for a minute, then renew their sub
when is this going to stop being news?
Exactly. “Sparking backlash” just means these people whined for 2 minutes like they always do, before reaching into their wallet once again.
Hello based department?
This is simply Business 101. Once you have a customer base you want to trade low-payers for high.
Did this with my computer business years ago. Woke up one day and said, “Why am I sweating these cheapskates that constantly bitch?” Fired them and kept the higher-paying, and less bitchy, clients. I was making more money for less effort and less overhead.
I don’t know what amazes me more, that people keep paying when they know the price will keep going up, or that people bitch and moan. Last I checked, YouTube access isn’t a human right. I’ll keep using it until these is no way around their ads, but I’m not paying them a dime.
YouTube has a monopoly and it’s no surprise people are frustrated, especially those who aren’t tech aware enough to continue blocking ads.
I’ve been paying $5pm for family premium for years.
It couldn’t last forever, I guess.
Must be 50-60 people right? Who pays for premium??
It’s unusable without ads, so if you watch a lot of YouTube it’s worth to pay.
I know, it is the reason why I don’t watch YouTube. I am just surprised that their tactic of gradually increasing the amount and duration of ads, worked!
If you have kids that watch on devices that can’t easily block ads like TVs or game consoles, it’s worth every penny.
YouTube ads are full of scams and smut and all sorts of other things I don’t want my kids exposed too
YouTube is the only streaming platform I pay for. I don’t want to bother with 3rd party apps, and I use it every day. Plus I get YouTube music out of it, so I don’t need to pay for Spotify. Overall 7/10 it’s fine.
No judgements toward people who don’t want to pay though, I get it.
I bailed because the YTM algorithm is terrible compared to when it was Google music. It had got progressively worse and I really realised how bad it was when I subbed to Deezer for a trial. If they hadn’t trashed Google music by integrating it into YouTube I’d still be paying for premium if it came with both. Can’t imagine I’ll ever pay for it again now.
Pretty much same. I do get a “free” premium account with Google Fi. But since I’m paying for family already, that just sits there. But still, 5 bucks per family member per month for music and YouTube ad free, I can’t argue. It works for me.
I would reconsider things if price went up 50% though. Nothing is irreplaceable.
