Because ultimately, is it really interesting to pay €6/month just to have a few fewer ads? Certainly, it’s still better than the current advertising harassment on YouTube. But if we still have to take regular cuts, the gain seems quite limited. Especially when we know that there are free and effective solutions to completely block ads, at least on a computer.
Of course, YouTube needs advertising to pay creators and finance its colossal infrastructure. Proposing a paid option to limit it is laudable. But at this price, you might as well go straight and remove the ads completely, right? In reality, it is difficult to blame YouTube which must see the success of similar models at Netflix and the arrival of Disney in this segment as a call to do the same, especially once the media plasters have been wiped away by the two giants of the VOD.
In the end, this “Premium Lite” formula looks more like a communication operation than a real breakthrough for users. A way for Google to say “look, we’re making efforts”, without cutting back too much on its precious advertising revenue. Let’s hope at least that this intermediate subscription does not serve as a pretext to further increase the quantity of ads for everyone. Because then it would really become indigestible.
