YouTube Premium Lite debuts at $8/mo - watch ad free, but with fewer perks

[Shawn Knight]

TL;DR: YouTube has announced a more affordable tier of its Premium subscription service for U.S. users. Dubbed Premium Lite, this new option offers an ad-free viewing experience for most videos while removing several features. Subscribers will lose access to background play, offline downloads, and ad-free music and music videos, but in exchange, they'll pay a lower monthly rate.

Premium Lite members will be able to enjoy most videos on YouTube ad-free, with the exception of music and music videos. Lite also does away with downloads and background play. The biggest difference, of course, is in the price.

A standard Premium subscription with all the bells and whistles commands $13.99 per month following a 17 percent price hike in the summer of 2023. Premium Lite, however, will set you back just $7.99 a month.

While convenient in certain situations, features like background play and offline downloads don't appeal to everyone. If you simply want an ad-free experience while watching traditional YouTube videos without all the fluff, Premium Lite certainly fits the bill.

At a time when subscription rate hikes are commonplace, it's refreshing when cheaper alternatives emerge. Again, perks can be nice to have at times, but some would argue that they've gotten a bit out of hand.

Imagine if Amazon suddenly launched a new Prime tier that only offered shipping benefits but at a fraction of the cost of its current membership. How many people actually use everyone Amazon offers with Prime? If a new Prime tier with only delivery benefits launched, it'd no doubt be a hit.

The new tier comes less than a month after YouTube revealed that TV screens have overtaken mobile as the primary device for viewing content in the US. Features like Premium that eliminate advertising from the equation only help to make the living room takeover more seamless and natural.

YouTube Prime Lite is rolling out now in the US as a pilot and will be available to everyone in existing pilot countries – Australia, Germany, and Thailand – in the coming weeks. If you don't yet see it, keep checking back.

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YouTube Premium Lite debuts at $8/mo - watch ad free, but with fewer perks

 

[Billybobjoey]

Losing background play kills it for me. I could do without the rest, and it's incredibly stupid that background play is a premium "benefit" in the first place.

 

[NumberNine]

Losing background play kills it for me. I could do without the rest, and it's incredibly stupid that background play is a premium "benefit" in the first place.

Completely agree. YouTube could have been YouTube, Twitch, and Spotify all rolled into one if only it wasn't subjected to the priorities of Google management. They perpetually seem to tank any functionality that provides a whiff of actual value or usability. Google's been handed every grace an advantage available to a modern commercial entity and they've used their own customers as toilet paper in return.

 

[opckieran]

Losing background play kills it for me. I could do without the rest, and it's incredibly stupid that background play is a premium "benefit" in the first place.

Completely agree. YouTube could have been YouTube, Twitch, and Spotify all rolled into one if only it wasn't subjected to the priorities of Google management. They perpetually seem to tank any functionality that provides a whiff of actual value or usability. Google's been handed every grace an advantage available to a modern commercial entity and they've used their own customers as toilet paper in return.

Sad thing is, I’m sure there’s a market for the inverse offering of what was announced today. Background Play with ads still enabled would probably be worth paying $5/mo for, AND, Google could keep playing ads!


For now though, there are plenty of ways around that on both stock IOS and Android, so…

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

Losing background play kills it for me. I could do without the rest, and it's incredibly stupid that background play is a premium "benefit" in the first place.

On an iPhone, you get background play free without any subscription (except for music). It works via picture-in-picture. Just go to watch the video, press the home button, then swipe the PIP player off-screen. After about 30 seconds it'll stop playing, and you can resume it again by pressing the media controls' play button in your control center.

 

[RudyBob]

It's TV get a life

 

[toooooot]

They finally are realizing that a lot of people do not need their stupid features. They just want to watch their content creators without ads.

 

[Megalomaniac]

I refuse to pay Youtube anything.
Youtube purposefully makes it so the Youtube app can't be used on iPhone when the screen is off. That's just low. I can go lower.

 

[VaRmeNsI]

Revanced users be like...

 

[nismo91]

The premium lite seems to be targeted for those who only use youtube on their TVs. they don't need background play or offline download. not too bad I guess.

personally I use my PC for everything so adblock does the job. I'd rather pay for 1080p no-ads netflix rather than pay for that premium lite (it's the same $8 where I live).

 

[BabyFaceLee]

Losing background play kills it for me. I could do without the rest, and it's incredibly stupid that background play is a premium "benefit" in the first place.

This kind of proves the point that it's a premium feature as you value using it.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

This kind of proves the point that it's a premium feature as you value using it.

It proves that youtube intentionally gimped their software to re sell it to you as a "premium" feature.

 

[BabyFaceLee]

It proves that youtube intentionally gimped their software to re sell it to you as a "premium" feature.

It does but isn't that what many digital companies do? It's shitty but they're going to determine the features that most value and charge for it.

 

[lonetac]

Even if you have an "ad-free" experience, the advertisements are more often than not baked into the creators videos. You are only eliminating some of the ads.

At the moment you are double ad taxed because youtube interjects their ads and then the content creators do ads in the middle of their videos.

Its stupid.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Even if you have an "ad-free" experience, the advertisements are more often than not baked into the creators videos. You are only eliminating some of the ads.

At the moment you are double ad taxed because youtube interjects their ads and then the content creators do ads in the middle of their videos.

Its stupid.

It is stupid, but it's because YouTube doesn't share much of their ad revenue with creators so they need their own ads to make money. So the double ad tax is largely YouTube's fault.

 

[ITLogicSystems]

Too late, already found a 3rd party app to watch youtube w/o ads on my smart TVs.

 

[PurpaFur]

Yea nah I'll just stick with uBlock Origin, thanks.

 

[ZedRM]

I'll stay with the normal Premium plan.