I’m gob smacked…
Genuinely stunned right now at the whopping — between 20 and 83% — price increase that Google has just dropped on long time users of the YouTube Music and Premium services. And no, that’s not a typo!
Users are being contacted today by Google noting that the service charges are increasing, quite substantially. If you’re only using YouTube Music on a single device, the price hike isn’t as bad, but for my family account we’re looking at $32.99 a month vs the current $17.99 per month; that’s a whopping increase and at that price, a Spotify Family account at $21.00 a month is looking pretty enticing…
In the email subscribers are receiving, Google notes this is to keep improving the service and supporting the creators and artists:
We don’t make these decisions lightly, and this update will allow us to continue to improve Premium and support the creators and artists you watch on YouTube. This is the first ever price increase for your subscription.
Other accounts are going up by a few dollars per month, depending on your tenure on the service. Long standing YouTube Music users will recognise the old $11.99 plans, which are going up to $16.99
I understand the need to raise prices and, on a platform like YouTube support the creators; but this is a shocking increase that surely, will result in a mass exodus of users to other, cheaper platforms.
