YouTube Premium users across the globe are facing significant price hikes as Google increases subscription costs in over a dozen countries. This follows earlier price jumps in various regions, including the United States last summer. The latest increases vary by region, with some countries experiencing hikes between 30% to 50%. For instance, in Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy, the Family plan will rise from €18 to €26 starting November, while the individual plan will increase by €2 to €14.

Countries affected by these changes include Ireland, Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, UAE, Switzerland, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Colombia, Thailand, Singapore, Norway, Sweden, Czech Republic, and Denmark. Although most Reddit reports are from European users, the price hikes also impact the Middle East, Colombia, Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia. YouTube had already raised its subscription prices in India by 15–20% in late August.

  • FiveMacs
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    10122 hours ago

    just cancel all subscriptions. None of them are worth it

    • Gregor
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      21 hours ago

      Bitwarden is worth it. (Yes, I know, I should self host it. I do, but I still see it as a good deal.) Also Hetzner is a good subscription. So yes, some are worth it

      • Anas
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        14 hours ago

        What do you need that isn’t in the free version?

        • Gregor
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          12 hours ago

          Authenticator. Also, I would like to support the devs. Running a server and developing the software itself is far from free.

          • Anas
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            21 hour ago

            Fair enough, but does having your passwords and 2FA on the same service not defeat the purpose of 2FA?

            • Gregor
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              126 minutes ago

              Good point. 2FA is quite useless if you have a randomly-generated 256 characters long password for every service. I guess Bitwarden is worth it for the advanced security reports (it costs them money for this) and supporting the devs?

              • @[email protected]
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                113 minutes ago

                You don’t need to justify a purchase! If you like the product, paying for it is ge best way to ensure it stays around.

      • Engywuck
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        21 hours ago

        Agreed:

        -Bitwarden

        -Storage Share

        -ControlD

        -Real debrid

          • Firestorm Druid
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            15 hours ago

            Out of curiosity, what do you do with all that storage? Can’t imagine I’d ever need that much personally

          • kratoz29
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            216 hours ago

            So, only cheap services are worth it?

            Are there some expensive services that are worth it? not just that they increase their price just because.

            Don’t get me wrong, I want more examples (and I am a happy subscriber of Real-Debrid for years already).

            • Gregor
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              129 minutes ago

              As I have said previously, Hetzner is most definetly worth it and it can be expensive. I can’t think of any more examples tho 😅

            • Engywuck
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              7 hours ago

              Well, I use what I need. I’m not going to pay an expensive service just because. For instance, I wouldn’t pay for Proton. It’d be quite useless (and expensive) for my use case. I do have a paid Zoho email account, tho.

            • Praise Idleness
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              215 hours ago

              Kagi’s ultimate plan is $27.5 tax included. Easily the best subscribtion I continue to pay.

            • @[email protected]
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              17 hours ago

              Just do the cheap unlimited personal plan and hook up a shit load of external HDDs to your PC. I have a system where my NAS syncs to my PC which syncs to Backblaze so I can sorta hack my way into unlimited NAS backup for $10/mo.

              3-2-1 backup where the primary source of data is the NAS, on site backup is desktop PC external HDDs, off site backup is Backblaze.

          • Gregor
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            219 hours ago

            That’s an insanely good deal! I should move pict-rs to backblaze on my Lemmy server

    • @[email protected]
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      415 hours ago

      So, steal everything or something else? Content isn’t free. The ad model exists, but only works if people see the ads.

      If everyone blocks all ads, and doesn’t pay a subscription, how’s that work for those providing the service?

      I’m not defending YouTube here, just curious what your solution is to have a service and not pay for it.

      I do pay for YT family Premium in the US. I watch mostly YT, and it is my music streaming service. I definitely​ liked it more when it was costing me $15/mo for that and was mad when that went to $23. I even tried switching to Spotify and using ad blocking on YT. I didn’t jive with Spotify, and while ad blockers work for YT, it’s a bit of a pain installing them on TV boxes and managing subscriptions across devices, asking with which videos you’ve seen etc.

      • @[email protected]
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        39 hours ago

        Not op, but I think a solution would be having AI watch the videos and tracking what the people are saying, wearing, using etc and posting links to purchase those things in the description. They get a cut of sales and can also sell links for competing products if companies want more exposure. This could be effective and noninvasive. Give a cut to content creators and it may be even more effective.

      • @[email protected]
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        15 hours ago

        Youtube revenue in 2023 (before these price hikes) was 31.5 billion USD.

        The revenue for the entirety of alphabet in 2023 was 307 billion USD.

        Youtube alone generated 10% of the entire revenue of alphabet’s portfolio in 2023.

        Yes, revenue is not profit, but I could not find profit figures for youtube.

        Alphabet’s operating income for 2023 was 84.3 billion USD. Assuming a similar proportion of revenue to operating income (I know, hella extrapolating, but again no direct sources for youtube) that would put youtube’s operating income in the ballpark of 8 billion USD.

        It’s not that they aren’t making money because people are “stealing” as you say from poor little indie company youtube. It’s just that they want more more more MORE MORE MONEY.

        Because of course they do. It’s never enough.

        Edit: because I forgot to link my source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204424000014/googexhibit991q42023.htm

        • @[email protected]
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          146 minutes ago

          YouTube is but one, and as I said while the story is about yt I was talking Mir in general. How do you pay for content/services in general?

          Right now with via ads or a subscription.

      • Gregor
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        114 minutes ago

        Agreed. Mullvad is absolutely epic. A question: why do we have to pay for domain names? And why do some providers offer a domain at a lower price than others, while offering the same services? it doesn’t make sense to me, an explaination is welcome

        • @[email protected]
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          16 minutes ago

          a couple of reasons, some being that 1, ip addresses are limited on the internet, and making it free would instantly fill it up. another is that there is still some work involved,because once you register for a domain, internet service providers and DNS providers around the world need to also add your newly established domain to ip to their DNS so that people get redirected to your domain correctly. the domain endings also have a cost attached to them due to popularity and who is allowed to hand them out. e.g country related domains (e.g .kr for korea, .fr for france has their reasons to charge or without handing a domain out, but some countries may get lucky and happen to have a domain thats desirable (e.g Anguilla has .ai) and thus will charge more

    • @[email protected]
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      17 hours ago

      I pay for my email (Proton) password manager (last pass), and VPN (nordvpn).

      I’d say subs that maintain your privacy and security are well worth it - there is no such thing as a free lunch and instead the tech giants are dining out at the expense of users.

      Googles ad monopoly needs to be torn apart. Because YouTube premium prices may actually represent what it really costs to maintain video sites like YouTube, but Google have managed to destroy all competition with the free model and now there is no one realistically able to compete on content or price.

      • @[email protected]
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        59 hours ago

        Proton has a password manager and VPN. May be worth bundling over paying for all 3 separately

      • @[email protected]
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        815 hours ago

        Sorry if you get this a lot, but have you tried Bitwarden? It’s been a while since I compared but last I checked I found it miles better than LastPass.

        • Gregor
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          113 minutes ago

          Or Proton Pass, they already use Proton for email