Whether to get YouTube Music has always been the question. The bigger question was to get the free or paid version. As someone who gets YouTube Premium, I didn’t know for a while that a free version was available. I get the paid version because I like watching YouTube on my TV. The commercials, or the amount of, is kind of ridiculous. Google has been trying to figure out ways to get people to pay for it. Their solution? Move content behind their paywall.

In their infinite wisdom, they opted to move viewing lyrics behind the paywall. Yup, if you would like to know the actual words to a song, you will need to pay for the service. OR… you can look them up on your browser.

According to 9to5Google, you can get five free songs a month. Anything after that, you will get that annoying message recommending you move to the paid version of the app. As well as blurring of the lyrics. The current price is $10.99 a month. Or, you can pay $13.99 a month for YouTube Premium, which includes YouTube Music.

YouTube Music is About Nickle and Diming You

Moving the lyrics behind a paywall sounds weird. They must have metrics that show a large portion of their subscribers look at lyrics. I remember when you barely got the lyrics. Many times you would make up lyrics that would never make sense. Would that stop you from repeating them? Never.

Do I think this will make a slew of users move to the paid version? No. I don’t know how many people will absolutely die if they can’t see the lyrics. With our society nowadays, we draw the line at weird things that we choose not to live without.

However, when you’re short on cash, it will be another thing to live without. At least, that is until you can afford it again. We all know how that is.