Google raising price of YouTube Premium to $13.99 per month

It's just a matter of time before YouTube introduces ads to Premium, which is why I won't be paying for it. It would be one thing if YouTube had a history of respecting their users/customers and continually delivered more value, but they've failed on both fronts. I don't trust them to not make the deal worse all the time.

YouTube, while still a valuable resource, is way less valuable to me than it was even a few years ago. Broken/distracting search, real thumbs-down removed, videos defaulting to 480p on a high speed connection, ads everywhere, their algorithm being hyper selective of videos with MrBeast-face thumbnails... and they want me to pay for that shit?

Product hasn't improved, but the price increases.

Enshitification intensifies. Think I'll keep stealing from Google.

Got the email, clicked the link and canceled. That's just too high for what you get and how they treat content creators and stress Google puts them through demonetizing and then requiring people go through a byzantine process. If I'm paying to support creators having those very same people randomly lose their income stream and go through a ton of stress doesn't exactly make me feel good about paying.

The price was already high for something that is not a product it's just extortion: "pay us or you'll get ads! Pay us or we will disable features from your phone like play in the background".

There is no recommandation engine for example, you just get the same clips over and over again.

I was looking into how much of the revenue share goes to creators yesterday; couldn't find any percentage or dollar amount from the fee, but that a premium user view is worth ~double a standard view.

It's all downhill from here...

Weird. According to my YouTube app I still pay $7.99/month?

I blame the big NFL deal, honestly.