YouTube Premium is the only digital subscription I’ll keep through 2025 – and here’s why
The cost of digital subscriptions can quickly add up month after month: for AI chatbots, cloud storage, media publications, dating apps, photo editing software, fitness programs, VPN tools, gaming subscriptions, top streaming services and more. If you want to save some money, this is often one of the first places you turn.
Since part of my job requires me to test and write everything from ChatGPT to Plex, I’ve signed up for more subscriptions than most – some of which I’m canceling as soon as possible, and some of which I keep renewing because I feel like they have a good value for money. And at the top of that particular list? YouTube premium.
It’s not cheap, with individual subscriptions starting at $13.99 / £11.99 / AU$14.99 per month, but as we move into 2025 it’s the only digital subscription service I know I won’t be using in the next twelve months will cancel. For me, it’s well worth the money – and maybe you’ll find it is for you too once you try it.
I’m not saying I’m going to give up everything else completely. I still have shows to watch and apps to test, but while there may be a certain amount of subscriptions to other services, I know I’ll be sticking with YouTube Premium through 2025, and here are the reasons why.
1. No ads
In a sense, it’s not that hard to watch an ad or two in exchange for saving some money – and judging by the number of people signing up for ad-supported streaming services, it’s a trade-off for many people willing to pay. are to be made. If you can watch YouTube for free with ads, why pay money to dump them?
If you’ve never tried YouTube Premium, you might not realize this, but the site and apps are much, much better when they don’t have ads. One video glides effortlessly into the next. You can jump forward and backward without interruption. The music mixes you put on in the background are not suddenly interrupted by advertisements for loans or holiday deals. And the recommendation panels and home screens are free of sponsorship.
After subscribing to YouTube Premium It’s now incredibly annoying for me to have the site load when I’m not logged in – or for a friend to show me a YouTube clip and then have to wait 30 seconds for it to finally appear. It’s a classic case: once you’ve tried something, you never go back.
I spend more time than I’d like to admit down the rabbit holes of YouTube – whether it’s live music performances or outdoor adventures I’d never do myself – and over the months and years I must have managed to spend hours in them passes and hours of additional videos (not all of which were of the best quality, but you get the idea)…
2. YouTube Music Premium
I don’t think YouTube makes this clear enough, but if you sign up for YouTube Premium, you also get YouTube Music Premium. You might find that you can do without your $11.99 / £11.99 / AU$13.99 Spotify subscription – so when you factor in those monthly savings, you’re essentially getting YouTube Premium for free.
YouTube Music Premium isn’t quite on the same level as Spotify Premium in terms of features and integrations, but it works well on web and mobile. You get lots of recommendations and personalized mixes, there’s built-in support for casting to other devices, and of course you get your year-end review.
YouTube Music Premium is also tightly integrated with YouTube, meaning all those b-sides, rarities and live performances that are on YouTube can be added to your playlists. With the extra music you have on YouTube, this is undoubtedly the widest catalog of digital music you can access anywhere.
You’ve got support for podcasts, mobile downloads for offline playback, background listening on your phone and higher quality audio options too – as well as a queuing system for your songs that’s actually a little simpler than Spotify’s. It’s almost worth the price of YouTube Premium on its own.
3. Other benefits
There are plenty of other reasons to sign up for YouTube Premium. You can download videos to your computer, tablet or phone – which is great if you’re getting on a plane or going somewhere with poor WiFi coverage. You also often get access to higher quality video than the masses on certain devices.
YouTube Premium subscribers almost always get first access to new features, and you also get your own viewing stats window so you can see how many videos you’ve watched. On mobile, the audio of videos continues to play when the screen turns off and when you switch to other apps.
Viewing positions in videos are remembered so you can easily get back to something you were playing a few hours or a few days ago, and YouTube Premium subscribers also get access to picture-in-picture functionality on Android, iPhone and iPad. There are also a few extra controls included, such as the option to jump to the most popular part of a video with one tap or click.
Your mileage may vary depending on how much you use these features, but I use most of them often. Add to that the completely ad-free experience and the bundled premium music streaming service, and I can’t see myself canceling YouTube Premium sometime in 2025.