YouTube Premium has increased their price $2

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I've been a subscriber for a few years now and I consume a lot of long-form videos (travel and movie/TV content), so for me it's worth it to not have all the ads.

Yearly plan is now $139.99 (up $20). I've gotten really used to YouTube without ads but not sure if $140/yr is still worth it. I have a few months to decide.

It's only worth it because of how awful the ad breaks are in youtube. I swear it's gotten way worse in the past few months.

I use the ad breaks to do a quick check of online stuff like email.

Here we go again. There has to be a breaking point where consumers just stop using these services

Dammit... I'd been meaning to top off my annual plan before it went up. Now $159.99/yr. (up $20).

I watch it just as much as anything these days and no way I'm putting up with the ads.

There is always a breaking point if it isn't a necessity. Just ask Doritos. ( Doritos prices jumped 50% in four years and PepsiCo waited until it lost billions to do anything about it )

I know I am going to start letting my subs lapse and just keep maybe one as a mainstay and then just get a month-long sub when I really want to watch something.

I am in the same boat. I watch Youtube regularly and dealing with their ads are excruciating. We recently gave our son a sub for YT Premium for his birthday. He has been watching YT religiously with ads since he was a kid. He isn't on any other social media, watches zero TV or other streaming services, only watches movies with me, etc. so YT is basically his only form of entertainment outside of video games and building model kits.

I kept asking him over the years if he wanted a sub as a gift to get rid of the ads and he kept saying it wasn't a problem. He just turned 22, gave him the sub without asking for it and he has had it a few weeks. He said that he will never go back to ads now.

I cancelled my premium a couple of months ago, cause I realized I was watching too much junk YT. "Oh this person made a video on that thing I like. I like the thing, they like also! Validation!"

The ads have made me watch less YT and now im watching better stuff, so success.

And now the price is even more.

I have found that the algorithm is getting a little annoying on my side as well. I mean, how many videos can be made showing "10 Cult Classic Films That Could Never Be Made Today!" and the like.

I have also noticed that I am getting more and more AI created content and it can be very annoying. Most of it is just feels lazy and contain weird errors. I am actively checking and if I get that stuff, I quit watching it and give it a thumbs down.

If it keeps heading that way on both of the above, I may be joining you eventually.

I got the email and immediately downgraded to Premium Lite.

Same here... I kept getting these movie "banned endings" and noticed they were all from the same channel. Blacklisted that channel quick. I try and stay away from the videos with click-bait titles too. Unfortunately the AI slop is everywhere these days.

I routinely go into my history and remove the individual watch history for items that weren't very good. Seems to help my feed.

These days it's a lot of Star Talk (and ST+), Practical Engineering, poker and pop music videos.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026...ads-are-a-bug/