YouTube Music Premiumwhich costs $11 on its own is included for free.
But is it actually free?
YouTube Premium would be more appealing without it.
How Much Does YouTube Premium Actually Cost?
YouTube Premiumseemingly includes two streaming services for the price of one.
What’s there to complain about?
Netflix’s cheapest ad-free plan, for example, is $15.49.
The same can be said for YouTube Music Premium at $11 per monththe same price as Spotify Premium.
But things get weird when you combine the two services.
That line of reasoning could lead someone to believe YouTube Premium only costs $3.
It’s clear what Google is doing here.
Because Google knows nobody would do that.
Ad-free YouTube is the draw, not YouTube Music.
As it is, YouTube Music still only accounts foraround 10% of the streaming music market share.
How much worse would it be if Google wasn’t bootstrapping it to YouTube Premium?
The point is YouTube Music needs YouTube Premium, but the opposite is not true.
That’s what has kept me away from YouTube Premium for so long.
I’ve tried YouTube Music multiple times, but it’s just not for me.
So why should I pay for a service I’m not going to use?
Granted, as I said above, I don’t actually thinkYouTube Premiumshould only cost $3.
Sadly, I’m not confident this will ever happen.
Decoupling YouTube Music and dropping the price would make it unsustainable.
Financials and logistics aside, I don’t like paying for things I’m not going to use.
I just want ad-free YouTube.
Keep the music, Google.
