YouTube Premium’s main shortcoming is stopping me from subscribing

Not a day goes by without YouTube urging me to subscribe to Premium. Whether barraging me with endless ads or taunting me with the lack of free downloads and background play support, Google believes it has a compelling case of pay-to-play. I’m not so sure.

Even though a Premium subscription would save me a lot of headaches and allow me access to other features, there are no plans that fit my living situation, and this is likely a problem for many others as well. Here’s how Google can fix this with a simple change.

Many readers subscribe to YouTube Premium for the ad-free experience, YouTube Music Premium access, downloadable videos, and YouTube Music access. But YouTube’s plans assume households consist of either a single person or an expansive household — nothing in between.

Currently, there are three YouTube Premium tiers: one for students, another for individuals, and a third for households of up to six members, but none of these fit my needs. I can immediately rule out the student plan since I’m no longer eligible for the $7.99/month offer. The $13.99/month individual plan makes the most sense for me, but I don’t live alone. My partner also watches YouTube; I’m sure she’d like an ad-free experience. If I purchased two individual plans, it would cost $27.98/month, even more expensive than Netflix’s ridiculous 4K tier.

Naturally, the next best option is a Family plan, right? At $23.99/month, it’s cheaper than paying for two individual plans and allows me to gift five other family members with Premium. However, this isn’t as great a deal as it seems. YouTube is now enforcing rules against sharing benefits with family members who don’t live in the same household. Since we’re only two, what do I do with the remaining four spots? I’d absolutely enroll my parents and sisters on my account, but since they don’t live with me, how long until YouTube shuts those avenues? I’ve faced this exact issue with Netflix and won’t get burned again.

None of the three available tiers fit my partner’s and my needs, making it difficult to justify subscribing to YouTube Premium, even with its benefits. If YouTube Premium offered genuinely unique and transformative features, I might consider the full-fat Family plan. But in its current state, I don’t believe paying $24 per month is worthwhile. Premium needs a mid-range tier to attract users like me.

This isn’t some far-fetched concept I’m proposing either. I’m a Spotify subscriber, and I love the service, especially its features like Jam and Connect. However, I was initially drawn to Spotify because of its Duo plan. For less than a solo YouTube Premium subscription, my partner and I can listen to our own music ad-free and enjoy collaboration tools.

For what I pay for Spotify Duo, I get more than my money’s worth. I don’t feel the same if I were to pay for YouTube Premium family for the two of us. I know Spotify and YouTube Premium are not equivalent services, but it’s easier to get YouTube Premium’s big-ticket features without paying for them. You don’t need to risk installing third-party or unofficial apps to get them.

The latest Microsoft Edge Canary build recently introduced background play and ad-block support. Banana Browser has a built-in media player that unlocks most of YouTube’s premium features, while Brave offers a similar fully-fledged experience. YouTube Premium’s features just aren’t exclusive enough to warrant paying over $280 annually.

I also argue that the experience of YouTube as a whole falls far below a product I’d be willing to pay for. The rise of low-quality AI slop on Trending, the proliferation of Shorts, the addition of text-posts on the platform, the app’s severe lack of customizability, and the mediocre personal recommendations I receive won’t improve if I suddenly fork out $20/month. YouTube Music, while an experience I thoroughly enjoyed, still lags behind its competitors like Spotify and is not worth purchasing on its own. The fact that it’s lumped in with a premium video service doesn’t have enough gravity, either.

YouTube still needs to convince me that Premium is worth the cost. The solo and Family plans are not tempting enough, but a Duo plan would go a long way toward twisting my arm.

There might be some good news on the horizon. YouTube has been testing a two-person Premium plan in several markets for several months now, including France, Hong Kong, India, and Taiwan. Based on the pricing structure in these markets, such a plan could cost around 1.5 solo plans. That’s a value proposition I’d consider.

There’s no evidence yet that the company is pushing this plan to all corners of the globe. If its testing data isn’t favorable, the company could easily toss it aside or reevaluate its structure entirely. I contacted YouTube for comment regarding the pilot and its future, but did not receive a response before publishing.

That said, I’m growing increasingly frustrated with the plans available to me, and I know thousands of users are, too. A two-person plan would perhaps give us the option we need.