RIP YouTube Premium Lite

Taken too young, we hardly knew thee

This week I received some awful news: Google is discontinuing YouTube Premium Lite.

Long-term readers of the The Rectangle will know of my deep affection for the subscription service, so maybe they can imagine my anguish when this email arrived:

If you can’t be bothered to read my article on YouTube Premium (don’t worry, I get it), the crux is I took ages to sign up for the service, but eventually did. And it was good. To be honest, it doesn’t sound that interesting when I write it out, but it’s good, I promise.

The eagle-eyed among you may notice that we’ve mentioned two different things here: YouTube Premium and YouTube Premium Lite.

What’s the difference?

Well, YouTube Premium is the full package. It includes ad-free viewing, access to YouTube Music, offline watching, and a background play feature.

YouTube Premium Lite, on the other hand, only has the first of these: ad-free viewing. The benefit is that it’s almost half the price of standard YouTube Premium.

The reason you may not have come across this reduced subscription is it was only available in select European countries, with The Netherlands — where I live — being one of them.

But don’t worry, I’ve had my fortunate ass shoved right down my dumb throat, because Daddy Google is doing what Daddy Google does best: killing cool services it created.

My heart hurts

It’s hard not to view death of YouTube Premium Lite as another example of enshittification, a modern day scourge I’ve covered before.

For the majority, Premium Lite was perfect. It got rid of all the fluff and delivered what most people want from a YouTube subscription: an advert-free experience. Even better, it was only €7 a month. That price felt right.

The issue with the full YouTube Premium bundle is that most people — myself included — don’t want or need YouTube Music, offline watching, and background playing. I mean, if you’re reading this, I’d bet serious cash that you’re already subscribed to a music streaming service like Spotify.

And if you’re not using all those features? The €12 a month for Premium feels pricey.

Lite was so appealing because it was user focused. It gave people options.

The right thing for Google to do (and by ‘right,’ I mean decent, respectable, or non-malevolent) would be to expand Premium Lite across more regions. Give folks what they desire: choice.

Want a full YouTube suite that includes a music streaming service? Or just a stripped back ad-free version? Something that works for you?

Well you’re shit out of luck, pal. That’s not how tech giants work.

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Here’s my guess at what happened: Google looked at YouTube Premium Lite’s subscriber numbers and worked out roughly how many of them would migrate to regular Premium if they discontinued it. Quickly, they found out this was enough people to make more money than they currently are.

So Daddy Google did what Daddy Google does and made people’s lives worse in pursuit of profit.

Enshittification in a nutshell.

But do you know the worst part? I’m enough of a sucker to upgrade. It really feels like there’s no other option.

I weighed up living with adverts on YouTube for about three seconds before deciding there’s no goddamn way I’m going through that again.

Effectively, I’m watching Daddy Google piss in my soup and slurping it all down anyway before crawling up to it and asking for seconds.

And you know what? This isn’t going to change. Daddy Google has a taste for asparagus and an almighty bladder bursting with urine desperate to bless everything I consume.

YouTube Premium Lite isn’t the first thing it’s pissed all over, and it sure as hell won’t be the last.