Many of you may be surprised to learn that there was a lite version of YouTube Premium. I thought I heard something about it but I never really saw it. YouTube definitely doesn’t advertise it much. I was reminded about it when I saw news last week about them adding some features. Now, the added features were something I don’t use much, even when I paid for their full bundle. Then I read a review of YouTube Premium Lite and thought this might be the best thing for me.
If you never heard of the “lite” plan, no one should blame you. When you go to sign up for the service, the “lite” option is buried down the page. I know why they do it. It’s basic economic reasoning. They want you to pay for the $13.99 option, not $7.99.
Real quick, the difference between the price is their music service. Both plans give you the ad-free experience of YouTube. I know people in the comments always brag about how they use an ad-blocker to watch it. Now, these douches are using an extension on their laptops or Android phones. If you use it on anything else (i.e. TV versions, iOS devices, Roku, etc,.) you are stuck watching ads.
The way Google is going against ad blockers, that option on Android could be coming to an end.
YouTube Premium Lite is All You Need
Anyway, the costlier version includes ad-free YouTube Music. As someone who didn’t have unlimited data for a long time, I was conditioned to not stream stuff on my devices. I liked YouTube Music because it allowed you to download songs and playlists, like Spotify. But with the amount I listened to music it wasn’t worth the price. I just wanted ad-free YouTube that didn’t require connecting my laptop to my TV.
YouTube Premium Lite is a great option if you don’t care about the music. You get “mostly” ad-free content. Meaning, you won’t see commercials on any of your videos. The exception is Shorts, music videos, and when you are doing searches. When I do searches for my podcasts, I am using either Firefox (with uBlock Origins) or Brave.
I have been using the Apple TV app consistently since I signed up back on Wednesday. No commercials on my movie reaction, historical, news, and YouTube drama channels. I did encounter a pre-roll commercial on a music video to test.
For People that Only Use a Fraction of Its Features
I was scrolling through YouTube Shorts on my iPhone and I didn’t encounter any ads. Now, I am not saying this will happen for everyone, but there is a chance. Knowing my luck, the minute I post this – my app will flood me with commercials on Shorts.
Previously, they put their background listen and download option behind their paywall. However, they changed it last week. Now, you can download videos to watch them on the go to save bandwidth. Background listening is when you are “listening” to a video and lock the screen. Again, I don’t use those options much lately but they are a nice bonus. I did that a lot when I was an evangelical and listening to sermons.
If you strictly just want YouTube with no ads and don’t care about the music, then this is for you. The new features are being rolled out over the coming weeks. There is some conflicting information on their site. The main sign-up page still lists it as behind the paywall. But their blog post from last week says otherwise. If you want free ads and don’t care about music, this is worth the $8.