Worth It: YouTube Premium (Lite)
Sometimes things are worth paying a premium for. It’s unfortunate but true, and in this modern age, you have to remember that your time has a lot of value. If you’re paying for a streaming service but refusing to pay an extra few bucks a month to have no ads? Sorry to tell you this, but you’re a bit dumb. A month of skipping ads every time you watch TV is worth so much more than $5 a month, and when you think of how much time those ads take up, you’re operating at a loss much greater than $5.
But I never thought of YouTube as this kind of service. Netflix, HBO, Hulu, these are streaming services! YouTube is like… a website. I remember when it was invented. I’m old.
But when I started knitting and watching a LOT of tutorials on YouTube, I realized I was wasting so much time on ads. Even 15 seconds of an ad before I watched a k2tog tutorial is NOT worth it. Especially when I can pay $9 a month and not have to deal with ads gatekeeping my knitting knowledge ever again.
Me when an ad plays on YouTube
A quick clarification: YouTube Premium has multiple tiers, and I have the lowest, Premium Lite. This is truly all I need, but if you want to download videos and watch offline, play ad-free music, or watch on mobile in the background of other apps, then you need to get the next tier, which is twice as much.
I started with the free month, and it was immediately amazing. I thought I’d just keep it while I was learning knitting techniques and spending all my time on the couch recovering from surgery, but I’ve kept it for over a year now because it’s THAT life changing. See, once I stopped being inerrupted by ads, I started watching YouTube a LOT more. I discovered knitting vloggers (they call them podcasts and I refuse to accept this. Again, I am old and cannot free myself of the old ways) and also found a weird comfort in channels dedicated to horror video games (I won’t explain this. Because I can’t). Now YouTube is one of my main streaming services, and all because I gave myself the gift of no ads. It might be bold to say you can’t not afford to pay for ad-free YouTube, but you know what, I’m saying it. $9 for hours of saved time and sanity is a steal.
