YouTube Premium’s earliest adopters are having their subscription costs skyrocket after over 10 years of paying a grandfathered price.
Back in 2014, YouTube Music Key launched, offering many of what would become Premium offerings including ad-free music and background play.
Those who joined during the beta period were charged $7.99. After that, the price rose to $9.99.
Four years after, in 2018, YouTube Premium launched at $11.99. In 2023, while those who originally signed to Music Key at the $9.99 were bumped up to $13.99, those original beta testers were grandfathered in.
For over 10 years, beta testers were able to keep their $7.99 subscriptions, even as YouTube kept jacking up the price. However, that’s now changing.
YouTube Premium’s most loyal users are having their subscription prices jacked way up
As reported by 9to5Google, these beta testers from 2014 have begun receiving emails alerting them that their $7.99 subscriptions are going away.
“I have a YouTube Premium family plan that has been active since before YouTube RED even existed back in the Google Play Music days,” one user wrote on Reddit. “Unfortunately, I just got an email stating I would be getting a whopping 2.12x increase in price all the way to $320MXN (16USD) starting August.”
Two other users shared emails, alerting them that their grandfathered prices would be increased, going from $7.99 to $12.99 a month, a 62% increase.
“This is peak dystopia comedy,” another slammed.
It’s not clear why YouTube is suddenly increasing the prices for these users, but it should be noted that YouTube has launched a cheaper version of Premium for $7.99 – the cost of the original beta best.
Premium Lite doesn’t let users watch music without ads. It also doesn’t allow background play or let users download videos to watch later.
Premium Lite’s arrival in the US comes as free users have grown increasingly frustrated with the number of ads on the platform and the site’s crackdown on ad-blockers. In fact, some users had encountered 60-minute unskippable ads. Around the same time, YouTube raised the cost of Premium, with some families paying nearly $500 a year for their subscriptions.
Content shared from www.dexerto.com.