Fair, but YouTube is imo one of those services that seems pretty fair about price increases. Disclaimer: pricing is regional, so I can only speak for the US pricing (as that’s what I personally dealt with).
It was $7.99 on launch in 2014 (as an early adopter price that they actually let people keep until 2024), $9.99 in 2016, to $11.99 in 2018 (for new subscribers only, you could still keep the old price if you were already paying), to $13.99 in 2024.
While the 2024 was rather steep, it imo doesn’t seem unreasonable (especially for the family plan that went from $17.99 to $22.99, which lets up to 5 people join with their own Goog accounts).
Sidenote: I personally don’t care in the slightest whether people decide to pay for this or just watch with ads or deal with adblockers (or other workarounds). But discussions of YT premium on HN have been a major eye opener for me, as they made me stop believing entirely in all the claims I see on HN in regards to “omg only if Facebook (or any other popular service that is free but makes money through ads) allowed a paid tier without ads, I would instantly pay, as this is an honest business model I support [followed by a large support of that opinion in replies]”. I always took them as genuine takes, but turns out that if even on HN that doesn’t end up holding true (given the discussion in this thread), it stands no chance among the general population.
As for me, I am glad that this option exists, simply because Youtube is one of those online services I peruse quite a lot, and not having to deal with their ads (or even thinking about them or being aware they exist) has been something I am glad to pay the amount they are asking for. Plus, I genuinely support the model of being able to pay a small amount instead of dealing with free-by-making-money-through-ads, especially for services that I spend a ton of time using.
It was $7.99 on launch in 2014 (as an early adopter price that they actually let people keep until 2024), $9.99 in 2016, to $11.99 in 2018 (for new subscribers only, you could still keep the old price if you were already paying), to $13.99 in 2024.
While the 2024 was rather steep, it imo doesn’t seem unreasonable (especially for the family plan that went from $17.99 to $22.99, which lets up to 5 people join with their own Goog accounts).
Sidenote: I personally don’t care in the slightest whether people decide to pay for this or just watch with ads or deal with adblockers (or other workarounds). But discussions of YT premium on HN have been a major eye opener for me, as they made me stop believing entirely in all the claims I see on HN in regards to “omg only if Facebook (or any other popular service that is free but makes money through ads) allowed a paid tier without ads, I would instantly pay, as this is an honest business model I support [followed by a large support of that opinion in replies]”. I always took them as genuine takes, but turns out that if even on HN that doesn’t end up holding true (given the discussion in this thread), it stands no chance among the general population.
As for me, I am glad that this option exists, simply because Youtube is one of those online services I peruse quite a lot, and not having to deal with their ads (or even thinking about them or being aware they exist) has been something I am glad to pay the amount they are asking for. Plus, I genuinely support the model of being able to pay a small amount instead of dealing with free-by-making-money-through-ads, especially for services that I spend a ton of time using.