Those features may not sound like much, especially for a subscription that costs$14 per monthfor an individual, or $23 for a family of five. In fact, in an effort to cut down on my monthly bills, YouTube Premium was among the first services I cut.
It took dealing with YouTube sans the Premium benefits that actually made me understand just how valuable those features were to me.
YouTube Premium
There’s only one reason to keep paying for YouTube Premium
I can never go back to watching YouTube with ads again.
The biggest benefit of all
I was so accustomed to life without ads, that seeing them again this way was beyond grating.
It got to a point, after just a few days, where I was questioning how anybody could put up with all the ads, with as many as two or three playing before a video barely longer than the ads themselves. Most people, I realized, were simply used to dealing with YouTube that way. Meanwhile, I was so accustomed to life without ads, that seeing them again this way was beyond grating.
More people should use this lesser-known YouTube Premium feature
YouTube Premium’s most-loved feature is its ad-free videos, but there’s another feature I find myself using a lot.
2Background audio
The feature for multitaskers
Sometimes, when I’m watching a YouTube video on my phone, I’ll notice something I want to look up quickly on Google or Wikipedia, or I’ll want to quickly check my Bluesky feed. That was no problem at all when I had YouTube Premium. If I went away from the YouTube app, the audio from the video I was watching would keep playing.
This was especially great for longer videos and podcasts hosted on YouTube. Just as with any audio-centric app, I could easily multitask on my phone while continuing to listen. I could even change my settings to automatically kick videos into picture-in-picture mode while doing other things on my phone, perfect for videos where the visual component is still important.
When I canceled my Premium subscription, I discovered just how annoying it is for the audio to stop playing each time I leave the app
Thought YouTube Premium was just for skipping ads? Think again
YouTube Premium has more than a couple perks that make paying worth it.
3Offline videos
Making the commute easier
I’ll admit, saving videos for offline viewing was never one of the features I made heavy use of, but like the bigger features of YouTube Premium, living without it got me to stop taking it for granted.
While I may not have used the feature constantly, I did use it somewhat regularly to download longer videos in order to continue viewing them on the subway, which has spotty cellular connection at best. It took just one commute, where I realized I couldn’t watch a video because I had no signal, that I knew I needed YouTube Premium back.
5 ways to never pay full price for YouTube Premium
I’ve found a bunch of YouTube Premium discounts and deals worth checking out now.
