I tracked my YouTube Premium usage for a full year to see if it was actually worth the money
I now have a more definitive answer
For a full year, the author tracked their YouTube Premium usage to determine if it was worth the $15.99 monthly cost. They started using YouTube Premium during the COVID-19 pandemic as an alternative to various OTT subscriptions, finding the ad-free viewing experience superior. Over the year, the author watched over 1,330 hours of ad-free videos, equivalent to nearly 56 days without advertisements.
Without Premium, the watch time would have increased by at least 200 hours, resulting in extended exposure to advertisements. The author also utilized over 10 hours of background play, which is ad-free music listening bundled with a YouTube Premium subscription. They downloaded 39 videos for offline viewing, a feature that is less relevant due to unlimited data availability.
The Lite plan, priced at $12.99, lacks complete ad-free access and YouTube Music Premium, making YouTube Premium the better choice. The author values YouTube Premium's value proposition more than Spotify's Individual subscription. Although they have a Spotify subscription, they prefer YouTube's accessibility for ad-free video and music streaming.
The author concludes that YouTube Premium is a near-perfect product and they won't consider discontinuing the subscription unless Google significantly alters its offerings in the future.
Written by urgent.news from Android Police's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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