Over the past week or so, I have been able to use YouTube Premium again since I subscribed to it earlier this month.
I was subscribed to it last year but ended up getting rid of it due to the 2022 Midterm Election in the U.S. being over. I subscribed to it with the specific intention of avoiding all of the political ads related to it.
Now several months later, I have subscribed to it again for two reasons.
The first reason I have noticed 2024 General Election ads start on it and the second reason being that I have just noticed more ads on it, as well as less skippable ones. When you’re someone like me that values their time, that also means I don’t want to be watching as many ads as I do regular videos.
After all, I do get my Hulu, Disney+, and Paramount+ ad-free too. It’s not that I hate ads overall, but more so they take too much time. Political ads in the U.S. and them being pretty much everywhere during an election cycle is certainly annoying.
With that said, when it comes to using YouTube Premium as an ad avoider, it works quite well. I do like the fact that I can subscribe to it via in-app purchases through Apple. However, that does come with an increased monthly fee. It costs $11.99 a month if you subscribe directly through YouTube, but if you do it through Apple, it costs $15.99 a month.
Additionally, other features like being able to lock my iPhone 12 Mini and be able to still listen to the video or content I was watching before is nice.
Being able to download content can be a nice plus as well. There are times when I need to download a video or two, whether that is for music or a long video that is better to listen to offline than going through cellular data and streaming it that way.
The only thing I can say I do not like about YouTube Premium is its premium price I mentioned earlier. With the features it does have, while great, do not justify the cost. There are other parts of it like YouTube Music that are included that I have no use for since I already have Apple Music.
I hope that there comes a point where we can get a stripped-down version of YouTube Premium where it is simply for ad-free content on YouTube. I think it would benefit YouTube and its users. I’d say a version like that should be around $4.99-7.99 a month.
Right now, I’d say YouTube Premium gets 3/4 stars in my book. It does its job and then some, but the price for it could go down just a bit.
Rating: 3/4 stars
