YOUTUBE is making a big change to its premium plan – and some users will have to cough up even more to avoid ads.
Selected countries could pay around £6 for a Premium Lite account but now they’ll have to fork out almost double for the main tier.
Fans have not reacted well to the newsRex
Premium Lite allowed users to watch videos without ads.
But other perks like offline downloads and background playback were reserved for the full price option.
It was launched in 2021 in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.
However, users have been informed that Premium Lite is ending.
Subscribers are only left with two choices.
Either upgrade to the main plan which is 12.99 euros / £12.99.
Or go back to the non-paid option and put up with ads once again.
“Why the hell are you gonna cancel the YouTube Premium Lite… ridiculous asking the price if nobody uses YouTube music, time to get a solution,” one user wrote on X / Twitter.
“Really p****d that @YouTube is killing Premium lite subscription as I don’t need another music service nor offline watching,” another said.
A third added: “All we want is adfree youtube. That’s it, nothing more, nothing less. No filler, no music, nothing else. Just adfree YouTube.”
YouTube has been responding to annoyed users saying: “While we understand this might be disappointing news, we continue to work on different versions of Premium Lite as we incorporate feedback from you, creators, and partners.”
The move comes as owner Google gets tough on YouTube ad blocking.
Since May, a new notification appears telling users that content will not play unless the ad blocking software is switched off.
What was the first YouTube video?
Here’s what you need to know…
YOUTUBE’S first-ever video was uploaded on April 23, 2005.
It was a clip posted by YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim, marking the beginning of the website’s rapid and unstoppable rise to internet dominance.
The video is titled “Me at the zoo”, and is geo-tagged to San Diego.
In the clip, Karim gives a short speech to camera in very low video quality by today’s standards.
He’s standing in a zoo talking about elephants, who can be seen in the background.
YouTube’s inaugural video has now been viewed more than 287million times.
It’s received nearly 14million likes and has racked up over 11million comments.
Karim met fellow YouTube co-founders Steven Chen and Chad Hurley while working at PayPal.
The trio went on to create YouTube, although Karim was officially an adviser to the site – rather than being an employee.
He remained relatively unknown until Google purchased YouTube in 2006.
Karim received 137,443 shares of stock, which was worth roughly $64million at the time.
Watch the clip here.
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