YouTube continues to seek to position itself as a paid option for streaming users, both video and music, so it decided to experiment with a new, cheaper and ad-free version: Premium Lite.
In addition to offering ad-free, this new, more affordable subscription level also offers other features like offline downloads or background plays.
YouTube discovered
Before being officially confirmed, the new Premium Lite service was discovered by a user en ResetEra, who noted that after trying to cancel his YouTube Premium subscription, Google informed him about Premium Lite.
Subsequently, YouTube confirmed to The Verge that a trial of this new version was launched in seven countries: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.
“In the Nordic countries and Benelux (except Iceland), we are testing a new offering to offer users even more options: Premium Lite costs 6.99 euros per month (or the local equivalent per month) and includes ad-free videos on YouTube. ”A YouTube spokesperson said in a statement. It should be noted that, the existing Premium plan costs around € 11.99 per month in Europe.
The pros and cons
This new tool could undoubtedly make some users give them an opportunity to subscribe to a service that was initially free, but which today seeks to join in the fight against other platforms such as Spotify.
For this, Premium Lite offers ad-free viewing in the main YouTube application, both on the web and on iOS, Android devices, smart TVs and video game consoles, as well as in its Kids version.
However, this new subscription will not have benefits for YouTube Music, where the ads will not be removed, nor will it include other Premium features such as background playback or offline downloads.
Although, this could be a tentative offer, because although the benefits may seem limited, the truth is that YouTube ads are one of the characteristics that many migrated to other platforms.
Even though YouTube outnumbers Spotify, hosting 2 billion music listeners, most do not pay for a subscription to its YouTube Music service or its Premium services.
According to Musically, YouTube Music has approximately 39 million subscribers, so its business model is still based on advertising.
Lite costs about 60 percent of a Premium subscription, but it only offers a quarter of its benefits, so this test could be either a success or a resounding failure, that remains to be seen. For now it is in an experimental phase and it is not ruled out that it could implement other characteristics as the opinion of the audiences is listened to.
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