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"Not enough people are paying at $11.99. We need to charge more."
Just because landlords think they can push through 16% price hikes doesn't mean everyone got a 16% raise. So they're trying to steer people from uBO by ... enticing them with higher prices?
I think they know people who aren't paying already won't buy it, so they are raising prices on those that found enough value in it to use it. There is YouTube music bundled with it that some like, so seems like smart strategy to me.
In reality they are going to find the limit where paying customers are no longer willing to be.
I have revanced and newpipe, and was still willing to pay as I get a TON of value out of YouTube. Im totally willing to not pay if they insist, however 🙂
People tell me oh youtube prem is reasonable but I know that yt is just going to raise the price bit by bit and everyone will accept it because they have no other option.
As with all monopolies/cartels/prohibitions unsatisfied demand always finds alternatives. If the rules get in the way people circumvent them. Youtube premium price increases will create a bigger demand for ad blocking. Just as the balkanisation of streaming services and reduced value will return many people to piracy. The people who run these organisations are idiots who destroy brands and shareholder value to get short term attention and bonuses.
The funny thing is that I used to have YouTube premium bundled with Google play music, but I had to cancel after they killed it. YouTube music was just a terrible experience coming after GPM (lost a lot of songs in transfer, unable to play only liked songs by certain artists, uploaded music locked in jail and unable to be mixed into playlists, etc...). I felt like I had to voice my complaint by canceling YouTube music, which I could only do by getting rid of YouTube premium as well. How else do you protest a product that got bundled onto something else you already used? Anyway, I would buy a cheaper premium tier if it didn't include useless YouTube music.
Same. I used GPM, then when they added YouTube Premium, I used that too. When they killed GPM in favor of YTM, I dropped the entire service.
Same here.
Between GPM shutdown, Crunchyroll’s terrible forced UIX change, and Netflix doing a complete 180 on all of their pro-consumer stances, I decided to say fuck it to all of them and spin up my own home media server.
I need to have a serious talk about this with my girlfriend. I didn’t realize she was paying so much for our YT Premium plan.
These prices are getting ridiculous.
What are you guys getting for that money? I honestly don't know. I just use either an ad blocker or the newpipe app.
It's a global solution, not just localized to specific areas. No ads on my account on my Xbox, PS5, Switch, Google Home speakers (YouTube Music), Fire TV Stick, Android TV, Roku, my roommate's Roku, or anyone else's devices anywhere else, in addition to places like my phone and PC where I just use uBlock Origin.
In addition, I'm actually just splitting the family plan across three people, so it's like $7.64/mo, which isn't bad.
Yeah with that many devices that's worth the ease of use for the price. I'm surprised they don't block more than one device.
Does your ad blocker block ads for YouTube and YouTube Music apps on iOS?
I use safari with adguard + sponsor block which lets me airplay videos to the TV. I don't even have the YouTube app installed. No need to try and set up smarttubenext or whatever on the TV.
While ad blockers are definitely a thing, I'd also like my favorite channels to get paid. And, honestly, it has to make money somehow -- it might as well be off my relatively stable back
Of course they are. Because literally everyone and everything is screwing all of us who aren't super rich.
“We need to be inflation winners”
Actual line from the C-level strategy meeting at my company.
I’m fairly certain we’re not alone.
Next; let’s talk about how recessions are made….
It's just like the old adage that history repeats itself. All the streaming companies are starting to do the exact same damn thing cable did. They're starting to bloat their own products and expense them completely out of normal working schmoes price bracket.
The early 2000s was Paradise for cord cutters. The whole purpose of moving away from cable was the smaller individualized payments. Now if I want to watch all my shows legally I'm approaching cable tv package prices again. I'll be damned if I ever get trapped into that cycle again. Now the streaming networks are bombarding us with advertisements that compare the cable was when I cut cord 20 years ago. And they're slowly getting worse.
Still better than cable ever was. No long term contracts, extra fees on bills, tons of useless channels and tons of ads.
I think people forget how bad cable TV actually is if they haven't used it for a while.
The month to month contracts for streaming content will go away soon.
They'll probably go the way other big subscription services like MS and Adobe are. Annual commitment with monthly payments of x.99 or no commitment with monthly pricing of y + x.99
I dislike that even more.
I don't see the value in complaining about things that haven't happened yet.
The general direction that streaming services have been taking in recent times is clear, though: Raising prices, locking down account sharing, splitting up the content across too many different providers and introducing advertisement in cheaper plans. Sounds pretty cable-y to me.
The early 2000s was before streaming was ever a thing. Netflix was still sending DVDs in the mail en masse.
I just canceled the Netflix account I have had since 2002.
They were great once...
Is there really anything you would benefit from with premium? Its sooo easy to find other content for free elsewhere and use YT ad free is basically one-click on a normal computer.
You probably can, but I'm lazy ;) I like it. Got the family one so everybody in my house can use it. We listen to a LOT of music on youtube music in my house, and a few of the others like watching cooking shows and silly junk on youtube. There's some pretty decent content. You can get by with ad blockers and stuff, but since I use the music app in my car and at work I prefer not to deal with all that.
For most people, there's probably not much reason to pay for it.
Edit: Not happy with the constant price hikes though. It seems like the bump the price by a little every year or two.
Yeah. Similar over here. If it was just me, I would be fine to find alternatives and/or blockers, but me, spouse, and kids… on different devices the ad time adds up.
This price increase sucks though.
This price increase sucks though.
Yes it does :\ Lucky for us it doesn't seem to affect the family package. They raised the price on that last year.
Here's hoping they don't raise the price of that plan too.
Or....you can use a VPN and change your location to Turkey and see the price that you get after.
youll have to pay with a cc based in, say the UK, so they'll automatically change your location back to the UK. doesn't work anymore.
I actually recently just changed my cc info to another local cc and I'm still just paying like $2/month and I have a coworker that is still paying the same price to when she signed up in Asia.
I just checked my subscriptions and my YouTube Premium is still grandfathered in at $9.99/mo from my Google Play Music subscription that included Google Red.
Myself and family listen to music all the time, and YouTube without ads has paid for itself with dev tutorials, DIY videos and other educational stuff; I can't run aBO on my TV. As soon as they find a way to kick me off my current rate, I'll bail, but until then I can't find a cheaper fit for my needs.
Damn, even $11.99 sounds like a lot - I only pay 12.99€ for a family plan in Europe.