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San Francisco, September 27: Google-owned YouTube is shutting down its low-cost subscription plan, ‘Premium Lite’, after a two-year pilot in select countries. According to ‘The Verge’, YouTube has informed its customers via email that ‘Premium Lite’ will not be available after October 25, 2023.
In the email notification, YouTube said, “We are writing to let you know that after October 25, 2023, we will no longer offer your version of Premium Lite.” Acknowledging that this decision may disappoint some users, YouTube noted that they are actively working on different iterations of ‘Premium Lite’ based on feedback from users, creators, and partners.
‘Premium Lite’, priced at $7.39 per month, was initially introduced in select European countries in 2021, including Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. This subscription plan provided an ad-free viewing experience across YouTube’s various apps and formats. However, it did not include other premium features such as offline downloads, background playback or ,YouTube Music benefits.
Current subscribers to ‘Premium Lite’ will soon have to choose between watching YouTube with ads or upgrading to the more expensive ‘YouTube Premium’, which includes access to YouTube Music.
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This change comes shortly after YouTube Premium increased prices for individual plans for the first time. The new pricing for individual plans now starts at $13.99 per month, while family plans saw an increase to $22.99 per month late last year.
Apart from this development, YouTube has also announced a new feature for its short-video platform ‘Shorts’. This upcoming feature called ‘Dream Screen’ is expected to launch in early 2024. ‘Dream Screen’ will enable users to create AI-generated video or image backgrounds by simply typing their desired content, providing more creative options for Shorts creators.
