YouTube Premium: another massive price increase in some regions angers users
While Google continues its fight against content blockers and third-party YouTube viewing solutions, it appears to have started another round of price increases.
The details:
- The price of a subscription has increased in ten countries so far.
- In some countries, a family plan membership has increased by more than $10 per month.
- Individual YouTube Premium subscriptions have increased by more than $2 per month in some regions as well.
- Countries with a price increase: Ireland, Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden Norway, Czech Republic, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Colombia and Thailand
YouTube Premium customers from several European, Asian and South American countries receive emails currently that inform them about the price increase.
The price increase fluctuates widely between affected countries. While the increase is relatively moderate in Thailand -- from $4.43 to $4.99 -- the same cannot be said for Denmark, where the price increases from $16.95 to $19.80 per month.
The price of a Family subscription increases as well. Again, moderately in countries like Malaysia, where it increases from $7.16 to $8.85 and enormously in Switzerland, where it increases from $26.12 to $37.05.
Users from Norway pay almost $5 more per month for a single subscription after the price hike.
Below is the full list, which was first posted to Reddit but with local currencies only.
The affected countries and the price change in each (converted to US-Dollar):
Ireland, Netherlands, Italy, Belgium:
- Single: From $12.91 to $15.06
- Family: From $19.37 to $27.98
Switzerland:
- Single: From $17.37 to $19.56
- Family: From $26.12 to $37.05
Denmark:
- Single: From $16.95 to $19.80
- Family: From $25.21 to $36.89
Sweden:
- Single: From $10.92 to $13.67
- Family: From $16.42 to $25.59
Norway:
- Single: From $10.92 to $15.51
- Family: From $16.42 to $24.68
Czech Republic:
- Single: From $7.71 to $9.00
- Family: From $11.58 to $16.75
Singapore:
- Single: From $8.88 to $10.36
- Family: From $13.33 to $20.74
United Arab Emirates:
- Single: From $6.53 to $7.35
- Family: From $9.80 to $13.34
Malaysia:
- Single: From $3.78 to $4.41
- Family: From $7.16 to $8.85
Saudi Arabia:
- Single: From $6.39 to $7.20
- Family: From $9.59 to $13.33
Indonesia:
- Single: From $3.75 to $4.39
- Family: From $6.29 to $8.84
Colombia:
- Single: From $4.46 to $5.21
- Family: From $6.71 to $10.45
Thailand:
- Single: From $4.43 to $4.99
- Family: From $8.33 to $10.00
First user reactions: not happy
YouTube Premium subscribers hit by the price increase are not happy about it. Some who allegedly received the email from Google stated that they have canceled their subscription as a response.
To put this into perspective: YouTube Premium is reaching Netflix Premium costs per month in several countries. Danish users pay about $22 for Premium and about $17 for a Standard Netflix subscription.
Google intensifies fight against adblockers
Google has intensified its fight against content blockers and third-party solutions recently. While it is still possible to watch YouTube without ads nearly everywhere, it is becoming difficult for developers as Google is constantly pushing changes that break functionality.
While Google is rumored to introduce cheaper subscriptions to make YouTube Premium affordable for more users, nothing has been announced so far. The constant price hikes across the subscription-based industry are not helping either.
All in all, it seems likely that pricing will reach a breaking point eventually. It could even help introduce new competition in the video streaming sector.
What is your take on this? Do You pay for YouTube Premium? Are you affected by the price hike? How much would you pay for Premium, if you do not have it already? Feel free to leave a comment down below.
I cancelled my subscription as well. New pipe ftw.
“Don’t be evil”…
They dropped that motto because they couldn’t live up to it.
Sail the 7 seas ARG!!!
Well, someone has to pay for those shitty wamo’s clogging up the road.
How about getting a better job? I’m pretty sure you can do better both for yourself and those around you, and on top of everything you’d be able to legally watch videos adfree.
you sound like your sitting on a throne, jump off it and come back down to earth
You tube is a crook? What utter nonsense. Monetizing videos make them crooks? If YT is a crook, then the subscribers are victims? Their Terms & Conditions are available, don’t agree, move on.
If YT is doing anything crooked it’s the crap they let people and businesses post. But bad taste isn’t a crime – yet. The socialists will ban YT (the Communists already have) sooner or later. Heck, they want to ban everything that humans derive pleasure from, and are stupid enough to waste money on. Heck, Socialists are banning free speech. Look at The Peoples Republic of China! How about Brazil, Venezuela, Britain, Germany. Look at what the Democrats in the USA are doing.
I’ll take capitalism any day; I can deal with capitalist crooks easier than wacko socialists.
Not sure what YouTube Premium did to trigger that rant about communists.
efromme
Comparing Venezuela and the CCP to the democratically elected governments of Brazil, Britain, Germany and the United States is hyperbolic at best and disingenuous at worst. I get you have a narrative you want to push but you leave out all the conservative and/or theocratic countries that have blocked youtube such as Russia, Iran, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkey.
The democrats have not banned youtube in the US, nor would they ever because they are much too friendly with big tech. If they did, I guess they could take a page out of the conservative book banning playbook and say they are “protecting the children”.
Stop picking on brother efromme. Google is not a crook, they are glorious. Those who dare question the glory hate freedom and everything good. Efromme is right, those who attempt to ban or criticize Youtube or any other Google product should be smited.
efromme, the article refers in no way to YouTube being a crook …
But a comment from a Tom below has.
Interesting to see geopricing exposed like that.
Some countries having to pay 5x what some other countries do for single user.
It that was me, seeing someone else getting 80% discount, or me having to pay 400% more, oh boy… mr manners would be pushed aside for a while.
Another anti-consumer move,don’t blame users to use adblock,there’s no fire without bush.
I use Firefox with uBlock Origin, an alternative Android app and Safari with Adguard on my iPad. So far so good.
it’s getting ridiculous. All streaming services are getting away out of price range for me to support them. At what point is enough for them to stop hiking prices?
Streaming has become so fragmented, I am not even sure it’s a great value anymore. I would not pay for YouTube at any price. I watch what is mostly secondary entertainment to my other streaming services. But all have raised prices and/or added ads to what was no ads subscriptions.
I now mostly pay for just content I care to watch on Prime and don’t get caught up in a lot of streaming subscriptions.
People actually PAY Google to spy on them?
Great move, that will really make people want to pay and not use adblockers. Meanwhile people who were not going to pay are still not paying and those who were paying will pay more.
“What is your take on this? Do You pay for YouTube Premium? Are you affected by the price hike? How much would you pay for Premium, if you do not have it already?”
I have no YouTube account. I view YouTube videos either from a front-end (Invidious, Piped) and if it happens to be blocked by YouTube (temporarily when running the most worthy instances) I then redirect the YouTube video url to its embedded page.
Of course I’m affected, though not concerned, by YouTube’s price hike. Not to mention that, as stated in the article, it is an incentive to delete a paid account, but may as well from there on be an incentive to install the ‘uBlock Origin’ extension for those who up to now weren’t excessively affected by advertisement (extension reported to be (still) efficient, at least on Firefox, no idea about Chromium browsers).
When a company was and remains a crook and goes one step further, one which will prove to be counter-productive, it is accessing the mad arena of insanity.
Monopoly – bad, bad. First we let it happen, then we pay the price.