I spent a month with YouTube Premium Lite, and I’m already canceling my subscription

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To say that I’ve been waiting for YouTube Premium Lite’s arrival in my country with bated breath is an understatement. For years, I wanted a version of YouTube Premium that removed ads but didn’t include extra bundled services like YouTube Music.

So, when I saw the pop-up to finally try the service appear in my YouTube app, I jumped at the opportunity. But after a month of using the subscription, I’m left with a bitter taste in my mouth.

YouTube Premium has never appealed to me for one major reason — I don’t use YouTube Music, and I don’t want to switch. This aversion to YouTube Music was really cemented in my mind when I tried out its free version last year. Due to medical expenses, I had a period when I canceled all my subscriptions except Google One. Spotify’s free version is still bearable, but YouTube Music’s free experience on mobile is just untenable for me.

As such, I patiently waited for YouTube Premium Lite to arrive in South Africa. That moment arrived when Google officially launched Lite in all countries where Premium is available. I knew that the cheaper plan still includes ads on YouTube Shorts and music videos, but figured that since I don’t watch shorts, this wouldn’t really bother me.

I finally signed up for the service when it arrived, excited to be free of the ads that plague me when watching YouTube on my TV . But when I started scrolling through the app after activating my plan, I noticed that sponsored videos still appeared constantly across the app. On my TV, the first video in my recommended feed is always an ad. This didn’t change with YouTube Premium Lite.

On the mobile app, after every few videos, I saw a sponsored placement or ad. I realized that when browsing and searching for videos, Premium Lite users still receive ads. Now that I was a paying customer, this constant advertising felt infuriating. I had made peace with ads in shorts and music videos, only to realize Google had snuck ads into other parts of the app anyway. I felt like I was now paying to be advertised to.

All I wanted was a plan with no bloat that got rid of ads. Instead, I ended up giving YouTube money while still having to deal with advertisements.