As someone who grew up on the internet, I’ve always been an avid watcher of YouTube. Over the years, the video-sharing service has become a noteworthy platform for content creators, and it has amassed a huge library of videos covering all topics.
I often forgo watching shows and movies on other apps, like Netflix or Hulu, in favor of some bite-size entertainment from popular YouTubers. But as much as I love watching the service, there is one key downside: the platform has evolved from a no-cost, commercial-free website to one full of ads.
If you regularly watch content on YouTube, most Premium subscription perks are as good as they sound. To start, it is hard to understate how great the ad-free experience is until you’ve tried it. Many of us use ad blockers on our PCs, but advertisements are much harder to escape on mobile. And frankly, they pay for the content you watch, so it’s nice to find a way to skip them without harming creators.
Though YouTube’s videos are still free to watch, you often have to sit through commercials before and, in some cases, during your stream. That is, unless you pay $12 a month for YouTube Premium.
Though I held off for a while, I ultimately bit the bullet and made the switch to YouTube Premium. Now, there’s simply no going back. The Premium plan only comes with four primary benefits, but depending on how much you use the service, these perks can add up to an essential upgrade.