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Youtube Businesses Technology

YouTube Premium Prices Increased Again in Numerous Countries (androidauthority.com) 43

Posted by msmash from the inflation-everywhere dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: YouTube Premium users around the world woke up to bad news today. In over a dozen countries, the price of YouTube Premium individual and family plans increased significantly. This is only the most recent sweep of price increases from Google, as many countries saw price jumps only months ago, with the United States being one of them last summer. Impacted countries include Ireland, Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, UAE, Switzerland, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Colombia, Thailand, Singapore, Norway, Sweden, Czech Republic, and Denmark. The prices have gone up by as early as 40%.

YouTube Premium Prices Increased Again in Numerous Countries More | Reply

YouTube Premium Prices Increased Again in Numerous Countries

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  • I truly don't understand why anyone would pay for Youtube. I'm not hating on the platform just confused as to why someone would consider the 99.9999% of the crap on there worth purchasing. Install an ad-blocker and then wade through the muck to find something interesting.

    • Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)

      by NettiWelho ( 1147351 ) on Monday September 23, 2024 @02:07PM (#64810253)

      I truly don't understand why anyone would pay for Youtube. I'm not hating on the platform just confused as to why someone would consider the 99.9999% of the crap on there worth purchasing. Install an ad-blocker and then wade through the muck to find something interesting.

      on the premium side youtube lets you listen to music on your portable device with player in background/screen locked

    • iPhone?

    • Re:Why? (Score:4, Informative)

      by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Monday September 23, 2024 @02:12PM (#64810277) Homepage Journal

      I truly don't understand why anyone would pay for Youtube. I'm not hating on the platform just confused as to why someone would consider the 99.9999% of the crap on there worth purchasing. Install an ad-blocker and then wade through the muck to find something interesting.

      I don't have a problem with it during the day, when I'm on my desktop computer watching some....no ads there.

      But, I'm finding more and MORE in the evenings that I'm watching it on my TV via my streaming box, and there's no real way to get an adblocker there on the YouTube app....which I can use with my remote control.

      I've been seriously contemplating paying YT Premium.....I just find myself evenings and weekends finding more I watch YT content finding it much more entertaining and interesting than anything on TV.

      • STN or smart tube next. I use it on my firestick and it brings so much peace of mind. Many a time I only take 2 seconds to decide whether I want to watch a particular video or not. But google forces me to watch 30 seconds of irrelevant and stupid ads before the video plays. That's why I do STN.

        • I have it on my Google TV and it is excellent. The only down side is having to update it frequently. Luckily, these days it self updates.

        • STN or smart tube next. I use it on my firestick and it brings so much peace of mind. Many a time I only take 2 seconds to decide whether I want to watch a particular video or not. But google forces me to watch 30 seconds of irrelevant and stupid ads before the video plays. That's why I do STN.

          I'll have to look this STN up....my streaming boxes are: FireTV Cube...and Apple TV....is this an app I can use on those?

          Does this stand between you and the YouTube app, or are you somehow running YT content through

        • I also hate that watching 1 second of a video I didn't want, didn't like, or just had my mouse or tv remote linger slightly too long, puts that undesirable video into my history list as part of the mix of "things you like to watch".

      • Wouyldn't be so bad if it wasn't constant ads, and constantly the same ads for stuff I don't need, every 5 minutes, or more. I had an ad show literally 10 seconds after the video started, meaning 10 seconds after the previous ad! Possibly a bug or quirk (play ad every prime number N of seconds, and also every prime number M of seconds, and also at the beginning of the video, and also at every point that our AI mistakenly thinks is a cliffhanger moment, and only show video when the viewer appears to be look

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by _merlin ( 160982 )

        All the ads do is make me not want to watch YouTube. Ads already drove me off TV. I just find other things to do. Ads definitely don't make me want to pay Google money.

    • Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Monday September 23, 2024 @02:20PM (#64810303)

      I will stand up for my Youtube Premium subscription:

      - The YT Music service is bundled into the price as well so overall not a bad deal there, I would have to have one for my wife and myself anways so that's like $15 off the top.

      - Youtube ad-blocking as told in many stories right here is a constant tug-of-war and I am so used to a default no-ads Youtube that I really can't be fussed to deal with it anymore, plus there are some other features (background play, offline downloads)

      - Youtube has for me lots of great stuff once you have some subscriptions and tune your algorithm to your interests. I have fixed my cars with several tutorials there, plenty for other hobbies like woodworking, electronics, pets, lot's of great informational documentaries, political news, entertainment channels, video games, concerts, could go on and on. Yeah 90% is shit but what entertainment mediums exist today that break Sturgeon's Law? I think none, 90% of Netflix and Disney and MAX is crap just the same.

      Is it overpriced for many? Absolutely, but for me, Youtube Premium would be the single subscription I would hold if I had to choose just one.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by nlc ( 10289693 )
        Indeed, when I first took out YouTube Premium I cancelled Spotify at the same time, because obviously I no longer needed it, so in my mind I was really just paying £3 a month for no ads which IMO is great value. Nowadays the price difference between Spotify and YouTube is only £1 a month. If you don't want a music service the value proposition would be different. I do wish they would unbundle the music service form the ad-free service. If they sold ad-free for like £3 a month I'm sure they

        • Same for me, yeah no doubt Spotify is overall a better music service but the libraries are like 95% identical and the YT Music features are improving so it is nowhere near worth for me to keep a separate subscription.

          Something I would be intersted to see if it was ever published is what the ad-revenue-per-average-user works out to and what Youtube calculus on ad-free pricing works out at, like with the amount of videos I watch would they make more from the ads or the subsciption? I would just about always

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by trylak ( 935041 )
        Being able to download videos in the app on my phone is a big benefit also... saves me a lot of mobile bandwidth.

      • Ad blocking is fine, but that's an absurdly high price for that feature.

        • For sure, I am not going to say anyone can justify the price for just ads but as a whole with the all features of Premium that I do use along with the music it's altogether reasonable for me. If you only watch things on YT occasionally then I would it makes almost zero sense at the price, if it was =$10 a month I think a stronger general case could be made.

          I also was compelled to join up a few years ago because I was getting ads again after YT changed their systems and wasn't having consistent luck of gett

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by RobinH ( 124750 )
      I got youtube family premium because my kids were watching funny cat videos and I didn't want them watching so many ads. Then I've started watching it, and I find I watch that instead of netflix. And I don't want to waste time with ad blockers. Once you grow up and start earning a bit of money, the calculus of money vs. time changes.

    • There is some interesting content on YouTube. The problem I have with paying for a subscription though, is that Google is just as bad as the old record labels when it comes to knowing that your money is mostly supporting the top popular content producers (such as MrBeast, et al.), which may not necessarily be what you're watching.

      Also, there's the whole Google is an advertising company thing that rubs me the wrong way, too. Feels wrong to give money to a company whose primary business is selling obnoxious

      • The entire economy seems oriented around advertising and advertising related companies. Next up, the Dow Industrial Average will be based off of advertisers and "free" services.

        The economics of advertising is still very unclear, and there's no reliable or proven formula that relates dollars spent on ads versus revenue. Advertising is mostly superstition, a lot of money is spent because it's unthinkable to not advertise. As such I think there's a massive amount of money being sloshed about that does nothin

    • I think YouTube has become one of the top contenders for most evil website. Not that it's just anti-intellectual, but that it makes thinking look bad.

      Hard to describe the crimes without access to the secret information about the money, but here's my main menu of beefs:

      (1) The part of the business model that this story is describing is mostly a kind of blackmail. You pay to reduce the harassment of advertising, but it doesn't help much since so many of the videos have embedded ads or are just disguised ads.

    • I primarily pay for youtube for the music. The fact that it's ad-free on my TV is just a bonus. No cat and mouse game constantly trying to stay ahead of Google. I'm 36 with two kids, I don't have time to mess with it. Also, the content on Youtube is quite good. Seriously 90% of my TV watching is long form Youtube videos. You might just be on the wrong side of Youtube if you think 99.9999% of the content is crap. I'm subbed to enough content creators that produce extremely high quality, interesting videos to

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rinnon ( 1474161 )
      YouTube Premium, and therefore YouTube Music, is my in-car music solution. If you think paying for ANY music solution is worth your money, then this is also worth your money. Ad-free YouTube Videos are actually just an added bonus for me.
    • Because shareholders demand that the stock price goes up another quarter of a point, and that they receive an increased dividend.

  • The prices have gone up by as early as 40%.

    Early? I'd think "as much" would have been a more correct way to say it.. I

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GoTeam ( 5042081 )

      The prices have gone up by as early as 40%.

      Early? I'd think "as much" would have been a more correct way to say it.. I

      Back in the old days a farmer could get more work done in a day by waking up earlier. So if you get up 40% earlier than your competition, you'll make more money. So if prices go up by as early as 40%, "Sam's farm-workers equation" tells you that prices will go up by $10- 20 US dollars. Each country has to modify the equation by their government approved manure to egg ratio.

  • Lol. Won't get a dime from me. Ever since Google got their hands on it, they've been about one thing only --- monetization. Yeah, yeah, I know it's business, they need to make money, blah blah blah, but there are companies who make a profit AND don't continual piss off their customers.

    Lately, it's been the whole 'you have to sign in' to watch a video crap. I know you want my data to sell, market to me, etc., but fuck off already, I will continue to find ways around it...

  • Now the CPI, Recession and all the the other numbers have bern fudged enough to get the interest rates cut to turn on the free money tap again, companies are just mining money through ad satutation and extortion to turn the ads off. Expect a visit by Google to Gorhill soon as well.
  • Cracking down on adblockers AND raising prices at the same time. I'm no business expert but I'd maybe do one or the other. Or even put the service on sale. Now keep in mind, remember the "tech October tax" where anyone buying anything before November Christmas shopping is obviously doing it because they can't wait until November. So they raise the price on EVERYTHING. Plus, Youtube Premium had an insane sale last year in November. So this could be that but early but I'm not sure if many of those countries d

  • Mozilla Firefox Adblockers ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JasterBobaMereel ( 1102861 ) on Monday September 23, 2024 @02:51PM (#64810423)

    Are still free ..

    • And don't work on TVs, and on PCs will very often stop working for periods of time. Adblockers really don't block youtube very well, you've got to use the script blockers, but even then it's a constant back and forth battle.

  • YouTube is the new tv cable co but you bring your own cable. Prices will go up in perpetuity at a rate always higher than inflation. More and more of the content will become advertising. We did this all before with cable. If you need YouTube Premium you probably really need a less passive hobby.

  • I wish consumers would understand that when a service like this raises rates so frequently, it's not because they have needs to be met. They're market testing, seeing what people will tolerate. If consumers could come together and decide to just dump them right after a rate increase, it would probably bring the price back down. But? Apparently we're desperate for more trash to watch, because Netflix, YouTube Premium, Disney+ and all the others just keep raising rates, and cracking down on shared usage, and

  • There is really nothing of value left on YouTube now. Late-Stage enshittification.

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