I get that it started for free with less intrusive ads, but YouTube has had a huge impact on the way we all share and consume information. Understanding how much money it takes to run a service with the technology needed to provide high definition videos on a site that is up 99.9999999% of the time, I have no issue paying for a service that has changed my life in many positive ways. Now I do hate price gouging like everyone else, but it’s inescapable from gas & groceries to all streaming platforms.
It made economic sense for us to get the YouTube Premium family plan. When we dropped several streaming services and also Spotify, it was a bit more expensive than Spotify’s family plan, but YouTube without the ads was worth it, especially considering they have a huge library of movies that they are offering in high quality for streaming.
Honestly, I’m more satisfied than when I was paying for Spotify Family and Disney+ and Paramount+. And if I must see the eight billionth Marvel show of the year, which I generally don’t, there’s always the high seas.