Well... here's my predicament: I resided in the US for a while, and then moved back to my home country where pay is significantly lower. Youtube still asks me to pay 22$ per month, based on the US fee structure. Google clearly knows my locale. Still there is no way to officially request a change in fare structure.

I do pay for Netflix and Amazon Prime.

For some reason, Google is not really customer friendly. It is so bothersome - just yesterday, I had to watch an ad which interrupted a paid promotion segment in a youtube video. Reminds me of an old Onion article about a starbucks opening inside the restroom of another starbucks. [1]

Some content creators have explicitly opted for non-monetization on their videos, yet ads are shown before, after, and during.

Given Google's frequent change of mind, it's really probable that they amend the terms and conditions so that even premium users have to watch a few ads.

[1] https://www.theonion.com/new-starbucks-opens-in-rest-room-of...

> if you're using YouTube do much that this bothers you, then just buy premium.

Is one obliged to be moral when dealing with an amoral company?

Most people would rather spend hours of their time to build a workaround.

Although, even on the minimum wage of my country, four hours of work is around half a year of youtube premium. based on the average salary for a developer it's probably around three years of youtube premium.

I will say, if I start to get ads on youtube premium then I'll start building workarounds but until that day, it makes sense to just pay the fee.

$15 for this, $20 for that, $10 for that. Even my damn rowing exercise machine's apps are asking $15 a month. I am not going to spend $200/month for subscriptions. If I can get away with cracked versions and blockers I will. It is corporate greed at this point.

I get your point. I too hate that subscriptions add up, and that too many products that were but once are moving to a subscription model.

However, this is partly on us too. For years we have been blocking ads on services we use, saying we want alternative means of monetization over tracking, blocking ads. Now this is the end result. At least YouTube still offers add supported model. Some websites have been subscription only for a while now.

It's not corporate greed to ask for money for a service they offer that costs them money to run.

Also half that money goes to the creators you watch, so it's also about supporting whose content you consume. And if they don't offer you 7.5$ of value per month... why are you even watching them?

Don’t pay for the cow if you can get the milk for free.

GOOG is evil and they’re there to be used for free. I would never pay them a dime.

YouTube premium is $17 a month in my market. I'm not paying $17 a month to remove ads from YouTube tier content. I'd pay $2 a month tops. Netflix is $22 a month for premium and Amazon Prime is $10 a month. YouTube does not even come close to providing similar value as those services. I'm not interested in any of the other junk they force you to buy with YouTube premium, it's just bundling to inflate the cost.

For me it’s about where I’m spending my time (YouTube), not so much the pure cost to make the content itself (Netflix, etc.). I spend far more time watching YouTube than anything else, background and foreground, which makes the $15 or whatever (am in the US, I don’t actually know what I pay because I’ve never questioned its value to me unlike Netflix, etc.) worth it to me.

I think it’s totally fair if you don’t think it’s worth it for you though. I’m very willing to (and have!) cancel most other services (except for Max which I get for “free” from my ISP) in favor of YouTube because I find the content far more engaging and I can tailor it to my interests far better.

I’ll also add that a decent chunk of my viewing is on mobile (phone or iPad) where ad blocking isn’t slightly more difficult using the YouTube native app.

Do you get to the checkout line and name your price to the store because you’re “not paying $6 for that sandwich since I don’t like the bread they used and don't plan to eat it” too?

Not saying that $17 a month is a fair price, but we should not forget that "YouTube tier content" includes all the music. Its value is a solid 10$ a month imho.

There's nothing stopping you from signing up in a different market and paying $2 ;)