Key Takeaways
- YouTube Premium offers ad-free content and background audio capabilities.
- The variety of features, including saving videos offline, justifies the $14 subscription fee.
- The service’s most compelling aspect is the removal of ads, enhancing the viewing experience.
When I first heard about YouTube Premium, I’ll admit it: I was skeptical. The idea of paying for the popular video hosting platform when all the content was available for free seemed unnecessary. I don’t like ads when they’re interrupting my TV shows and movies, but for online video, I really didn’t think I minded much.
It turns out, I was wrong. After subscribing to the service for an entirely different reason, I discovered that an ad-free YouTube is just too good to live without. Over the last few years, I’ve become something of an evangelist for YouTube Premium, even going so far as to include friends in my family subscription.
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Removing ads isn’t the only feature of YouTube Premium, though, and it wasn’t even the feature that first got me to sign up. While some disagree that Premium is worth the price, at this point I can’t imagine life without it.
YouTube Premium
- What’s included?
- YouTube and YouTube Music add-free and in the background
- Price
- $14 a month
- Live TV
- No
What exactly is YouTube Premium?
It’s just YouTube as you know it, but better
YouTube
YouTube Premium first launched as Music Key in 2014, giving subscribers ad-free music videos from major record labels. The company relaunched the service as YouTube Red in 2015, this time making all videos on the platform ad-free.
Finally, in 2018, the name was changed to YouTube Premium, reflecting the added benefits subscribers get by signing up. First and foremost is removing ads on all devices and browsers. There is also original content published by big YouTube creators that is only available to subscribers. Additionally, Premium allows users to play audio from YouTube videos in the background or in picture-in-picture mode on mobile devices, and users are able to save videos for offline viewing.
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Why I signed up for YouTube Premium
The secondary features got me
The big sell for YouTube Premium is removing ads from all videos. A great feature, but one I didn’t think I cared about. Instead, what got me to sign up were the background audio capabilities and saving videos offline.
I often found myself wanting to continue watching or listening to YouTube videos while traveling on the subway without any cellular signal.
While working from home, I would often have live YouTube-hosted talk shows playing while I was at my desk. But when I needed to go outside to walk the dog, the only way I could keep listening live was to keep the YouTube app on my phone open and the screen on. If I left the app or shut my screen off, the audio would stop.
On top of that, I often found myself wanting to continue watching or listening to YouTube videos while traveling on the subway without any cellular signal. That was impossible, of course. When I saw that YouTube Premium would allow me to listen to audio in the background and save videos so I could keep watching them on the subway, I decided to sign up for a free trial.
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YouTube Premium’s killer feature
It was the ads all along
Though I may not have signed up in order to remove ads, in the end, it was the feature that really did away with my skepticism about YouTube Premium.
I certainly enjoyed the ability to listen in the background and save videos offline, but as my work situation changed, and as cellular service expanded on the subway system, I found myself less in need of either feature. They were and still are very nice to have, and it’s hard to imagine doing without them, but they weren’t the features that ultimately got me to hold onto my subscription for many years.
After years of becoming accustomed to watching YouTube without ever seeing ads, their sudden intrusion was maddening.
It really was the ads all along. I thought I was fine putting up with ads at the start of videos, or peppered throughout longer ones. It turns out, I didn’t know how good the ad-free life could be. In fact, I understood the benefit best when, recently, I temporarily paused my subscription.
I spent just a few weeks having to deal with ads on YouTube, and readers — it was terrible. After years of becoming accustomed to watching YouTube without ever seeing ads, their sudden intrusion was maddening.
YouTube Premium might not offer a large suite of features, and it might seem like paying $14 per month for no ads and background audio capabilities on your phone, but as I discovered, it really is worth it.
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