YouTube briefly offered Premium Lite subscriptions in select EU countries before phasing it out in October 2023. This tier costs half of Premium and offers ad-free viewing without any other benefits associated with full-priced Premium. registration. Recent reports, as well as confirmation from Android Authority, confirm that Premium Lite is returning, but it appears that it will be completely ad-free.
Recently, some screenshots seen by many users on Reddit and Threads (via Android Authority) started to appear where they saw a new Premium Lite option while signing up for the paid tier. Lite is listed as roughly half the regular price of Premium, with Premium priced at $22.99 and Lite at $11.99.
Just a day later, Google confirmed on the site that the Lite tier is returning. “We are testing a different version of Premium Lite, and some users in Australia, Germany, and Thailand may see a subscription option,” it said. It is not yet clear how this version will differ and whether or not it will be available in the US.
However, there was something about those screenshots that caught our eye. This time, unlike when Premium Lite was first available, it does not offer ad-free functionality and has quietly switched to “Limited Ads” instead. I’m not on YouTube Premium, and was thinking of signing up for Lite when it came to the US, but the limited ad feature put me off. This is because an ad-free experience is all that the Lite tier offers (and it was). Other benefits—offline downloads, background playback, and YouTube Music Premium—are all features of YouTube Premium. So, it’s strange to know that it can no longer do the one job it has—remove ads.
I hope things can change once the category is officially launched. It is confusing what Google is trying to do by closing the Lite registration just two years after launching it in 2021, limiting the availability of certain EU countries, suddenly returning the category in a smart way, and bringing “limited” ads to it.
With the recent downgrade of the world’s most popular adblocker (and my old favorite), uBlock Origin, I need Premium Lite credentials verified more than ever. The Verge recently reported that adblocker is seeing a complete end as Chrome has started automatically disabling the extension. uBlock Origin developer Raymond Hill reposted a tweet which showed Chrome informs the user about the adblocker “no longer supported.”
Google’s war against adblockers is not new. A few months ago, it introduced a new protection strategy that automatically skips videos to the end whenever you try to watch YouTube with an adblocker on. It has also experimented with showing viewers a painfully long and annoying loading screen to prevent them from using adblocking extensions.
Until now, at least, adblockers always reverse Google’s code very quickly and deal with all the new strategies introduced by YouTube. The complete withdrawal of uBlock Origin support and the affordable category of ad-free (or limited) experiences make it clear that Google is tired of the years of cat and mouse game between its products (YouTube) and advertisers. . It wishes to completely eliminate shortcuts that will not fill its pockets, instead, present solutions that are more palatable to users who are more inclined to subscribe to them.
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