Last month, Google confirmed that it is trying to end a loophole that allows YouTube Premium subscribers to subscribe for less. The idea was simple: instead of subscribing from a country where YouTube Premium costs an arm and a leg, you use a VPN or other means to subscribe from a country where it costs a tenth or less of the actual price.
Now, Google confirmed that it is also investigating YouTube Premium Family subscriptions for misuse. Here, Google is going after subscribers who share a subscription with members who do not live in the same household.
For instance, when household members move out but continue to use the family’s YouTube Premium subscription at the new place. There have also been instances where access was shared between a group of friends or even resold.
Google is sending out emails to YouTube Premium subscribers reportedly, if it believes that the Family Plan is misused. The subscription is paused for those users, which means that they will see ads and do not get access to any of the other benefits that come with a YouTube Premium subscription.
A YouTube Premium Family subscription costs about $23 at the time of writing in the USA. This allows the subscriber to share the subscription with up to five family members. A single YouTube Premium subscription sets users back about $14 right now in the USA.
Six friends who would share a subscription would pay $4 per month for YouTube Premium effectively. That is still more expensive than a single subscription in some countries, but much cheaper than a regular subscription.
The scope of the investigation is unknown. Google could be testing the waters to analyze reactions of subscribers that it contacts. In the long run, however, it seems likely that Google plans to end all “get YouTube Premium for cheaper” loopholes.
Now You: Do you have a YouTube Premium subscription? Feel free to leave a comment down below.
To be honest, I’ve never seen anything on Youtube that I would consider worth paying for. Most of the stuff on there are just videos that hobbyists have uploaded without any monetization in mind. I’m one of them actually and used to upload all my flight videos, but since Google started using them to bombard users with ads, I don’t bother anymore, especially since they removed all the free editing tools. Having to edit stuff on FOSS at home is a pain in the posterior even though ShotCut is a good tool for that purpose.