Category: Entertainment

The official way to watch YouTube videos without advertisement is YouTube Premium. The subscription-based service costs $13.99 per month in the United States if you sign up for a regular plan. If you pay annually, that price drops to about $11.66 per month. Students get it for $7.99 and there is also a Family plan for $22.99.

Google has made an announcement on its official support website recently. The company listed new YouTube Premium features and also hinted at the introduction of new plans.

Here are the new features:

• Jump Ahead feature on mobile to skip ahead. This is done with a double-tap and only available for Android at the time. Apple iOS support is coming “in the future” according to Google.
• Shorts Picture-in-Picture to watch Shorts while using other apps. Android exclusive.
• Smart Downloads to download “recommended Shorts automatically” to the device (experimental).
• Redesigned Watch Patch (experimental).

Most of the features are limited to mobile devices. Furthermore, some of them, especially the redesigned watch patch, are almost universally disliked by the community.

Google hints at new YouTube plans

More interesting than these features is Google’s announcement that it plans to expand “existing offers to more regions” and introduce “new plans” in the future as well.

Could it be that Google finally realized that the price of a YouTube Premium subscription is high if it is just used to watch content without advertisement?

YouTube Premium Lite appears to be a thing still, albeit heavily limited. It dropped the price of a subscription to about $6, but did not remove all ads on YouTube and did not provide access to YouTube Music or downloads.

Closing Words

While there are ways to watch YouTube videos without ads, I have to admit that I would be fine with paying a monthly fee for that. YouTube’s current premium pricing is over my monthly limit though. I do not use the service enough to justify the expense.

If YouTube’s upcoming plan or plans become reality, and if they are below my personal limit, then I’d certainly consider subscribing. In case you are wondering, my limit is $5 per month, preferably less than that if paid yearly.

What about you? Would you pay for YouTube Premium?

YouTube users who do not want to be pestered by ads on the platform have several options. The only official option is a YouTube Premium subscription, which is completely ad-free according to Google.

Problem is, you pay a premium depending on where you live. If you live in the United States, you pay $14 a month for YouTube Premium. This does get you access to YouTube Music, but not everyone needs that.

Look abroad, and you may notice that subscriptions are considerably cheaper in some regions. Users from India, for example, pay less than $16 per year for YouTube Premium.

It should be clear that Google is taking into account wealth differences when selecting prices for YouTube Premium. The per-capita income in India has been $2,050 as of 2023, which is considerably less than the United States 2023 per-capita income of $71,000.

YouTube users finding a loophole

Some YouTube users discovered that they can sign-up for YouTube Premium in a different country. This required the use of a VPN to get to the sign-up page of that country.

Sign-ups worked and users could access YouTube and YouTube Music ad-free afterwards.

Google did receive some money from these users, which some felt was still better than getting nothing. The use of adblockers prevents advertisement as well, and solutions do exist for all major platforms, including desktop PCs, mobile devices, and TVs.

Google fighting back

Reports suggest that Google is now cancelling YouTube Premium subscriptions for some subscribers.

No official confirmation: Google has not confirmed the crackdown officially.

The company told Techcrunch that it has systems in place that detect when a user’s country of origin and the YouTube Premium sign-up country are different.

Customers are asked to update their billing information in this case, according to Google.

Users claim that Google is cancelling their subscriptions outright. Some claimed that they were able to sign-up again using a VPN, but this is unconfirmed.

Closing Words

Google is already playing cat and mouse with adblocking users. It tests and implements changes to get adblocking users to stop using their content blocking extensions on YouTube or signing up for YouTube Premium. Adblockers do get updated quickly and the game begins anew.

It is possible that this is now extended to YouTube Premium subscriptions. Google cancels the subscription and users sign-up again using the same or a different account, in the same or a different region.

Some may also switch to using adblockers instead.

How much is YouTube without ads worth to you? That is a question that every user has to answer individually.

Stepify is a new online service that uses AI to create summaries of YouTube videos. The core idea behind the service is to create step-by-step instructions of tutorial or lecture videos. While that may be the intended use, it works with other types of videos as well:

• Top list videos: say, the top 50 music videos of the 90s, top 100 Sony PlayStation games of all time, or the top action movies of 2024.
• Hands-on videos, such as cooking videos or repair videos.
• News videos: get summaries of news videos. This works for financial reports and other types of reports as well.

How Stepify works

Stepify is simple to use. Just open the website of the service and paste a video URL into the field. It takes just a brief moment to get a summary of it.

The layout of the summary resembles a step-by-step guide, even if it is not one. This is not much a problem, as you can easily ignore the structure and extract the information that you want from the summary.

Several tests went surprisingly well. When tasked to create a summary of a top 25 Sega Saturn games video, Stepify did return all 25 mentioned titles.

Not only that, it also revealed why each game has been picked by the creator of the video.

Tests with other top lists and tutorial videos worked really well.

Some tests returned less useful information. When tasked to summarize financial videos, Stepify did return core information, but not all relevant information.

While that may still be okay for a first overview, considering that you get it in a matter of seconds, it is necessary to look up additional information for the full picture.

The developer explains on Hacker News that Stepify gets the transcript from an API and passes it on to GPT.

Closing Words

Stepify is an interesting service. It is free to use and works fast, even for longer videos. While it is still necessary to verify the returned information, it may help users get a quick overview of the content of videos.

It may also be useful to users who prefer text-based information over video.

More and more YouTube users see the “Try searching to get started” message when they open the YouTube website. Usually, YouTube displays a list of recommended videos when users launch the site. What is displayed there depends on whether you are signed-in or not.

If you are signed-in, you see recommendations based on past searches, played videos, and also subscriptions. Users who are not signed-in see general recommendations instead.

It appears that Google is changing the YouTube experience for anonymous users. These see the aforementioned message when they load YouTube in a web browser.

In other words, YouTube suggests not a single video for users who are not signed in to the site.

While YouTube suggests to search for videos to help it generate a feed of recommended videos, it does not appear to work that way at the time of writing.

Even if you run searches and play videos, YouTube continues to show the message on its frontpage.

Some users may also see “Your YouTube history is off” instead, even though they are signed out.

A click on the update setting button opens the personalization settings & cookie page on YouTube. While it is possible to enable the YouTube history there, even if you are not signed in, it does not seem to have an effect.

YouTube displays the try searching to get started message after confirmation on the page.

The meaning of “Try searching to get started”

Google published no confirmation of the change at this point. It is clear that logged out users are affected by this.

It is another option to stop binging so much on YouTube, but not that helpful for users who want to see recommendations.

Google is already being criticized on Twitter, Reddit, and other sites for the change. The main point of criticism is that it appears that Google is pushing users to signing in to continue getting video recommendations.

Recommendations are also not shown in private browsing windows. It is unclear if this is an error on YouTube’s part or a deliberate rollout of the feature.

Since the proposed action, “searching”, does nothing at the time, it looks more like an error. Still, it is possible that this is the new default for users who are not signed-in to the site.

Closing Words

There is a good chance that logged out YouTube users will watch less content on the site. The constant barrage of recommendations stops, which leaves manual searches and related videos as the only option of exploration.

Google will likely post an official statement at one point. For now, it looks like a half-baked implementation of the change.

Look at those cute cats. Just one more video and I’m done for the day. Promise! One of the many appeals of YouTube is the site’s vast assortment of videos. There is probably nothing that you cannot watch on YouTube, with the exception of prohibited content of course. If you find a video you like, there is a good chance that hundreds, thousands or even more videos exist that are similar.

Google does a good job of pushing video recommendations to users. You get them on the startpage, while watching videos, and even after watching videos. Some vides may also autoplay after you finish watching a video. While it does not mean that these recommendations are great, they are not sometimes, they do parade new content in front of your eyes all the time.

In fact, you could probably spend the whole day on autopilot on YouTube without ever running out of something to watch.

Google knows that recommendations are key to keep users on the site. The more it knows about its users, the more likely it is that the next video may be of interest. Yes, YouTube gets it wrong at times.

I get a lot of Turkish video recommendations on YouTube, even though I do not speak the language and never watched a single Turkish video on the site. Still, most of the time, you get more of the same, which many users seem to like.

Binging may be a problem for some, especially if it keeps you from something more important. Some YouTube users seek for ways to limit binging on the site. While it may be easy for some, all it takes is to close the YouTube tab and that is that, it can be really difficult for others.

Read on to find out about one way that may help you with your binging on YouTube, at least a bit.

Stop binging on YouTube

One of the ways that YouTube may get you is through recommendations on the homepage. Open the YouTube homepage and you will see a list of recommendations. YouTube uses the watch history to show recommendations. The main intent is to provide users with something new to watch. This keeps them on the site and Google earns money through video ads and other ads on the site.

If you turn off the watch history, and delete all watched items, then you won’t get any recommendations on YouTube’s homepage anymore. It is a simple option that does require a Google account.

You could create a simple Google account for that, if you don’t want to stay signed-in on YouTube.

Here is how you disable the watch history on YouTube:

1. Open the YouTube website.
2. Sign-in to a Google account, if you have not done so already.
3. Activate the profile icon in the top right corner and select “Your data in YouTube”.
4. Scroll down to YouTube controls.
5. Check the “YouTube Watch History” status. If it reads on, click on the “on” line.
6. On the page that opens, select “turn off”.
7. An overlay with information opens. It tells you that you can only pause the history, not stop it entirely. Scroll down until the pause button becomes active and activate it.
8. Select “Delete old activity” on the next page to delete information about previously watched videos.
9. Select “all time” on the page that opens.
10. Select “delete” on the next page to finally delete the information.
11. Select “Got it” to go back to the main page.

When you go back to YouTube now, you should see no recommendations on the startpage.

You could also hide YouTube Shorts, especially if you do not find Shorts useful on the site, but happen to tune in from time to time anyway.

Closing Words

Obviously, not everyone may want to stay signed-in on YouTube just to limit binging on the video site. Working on self-control may also help. You could, for instance, make sure that everything else is done already before launching YouTube.

Another option that you have is to download YouTube videos instead of watching them online. Use a program like Vividl and download the video that interests you. You can play it locally then and do not get any recommendations while playing the video or afterwards.

Now You: do you binge on something?