Outrageous YouTube Premium price hike affects Apple users the worst

If you watch YouTube a lot or use the platform, the story online has been one thing: YouTube Premium price hike is coming upon us, and it’ll be effective starting in November this year.

Folks on Reddit have been complaining about the current price hikes that range from 30% to nearly 60%. Some even received surprising emails that detail more about it.

In Europe, for example, many individual plans have jumped in price according to this Reddit thread, such as in Ireland where it went from €11.99 to €13.99, and in Denmark from 119 DKK to 139 DKK. Family plans have also seen big increases, like in Belgium where the cost rose from €17.99 to €25.99.

Similar price hikes are happening in Asia and the Middle East. In Singapore, the individual plan went up from 11.98 SGD to 13.98 SGD, and in the UAE, the family plan jumped from 35.99 AED to 48.99 AED. The list goes on.

One of the perks that it has is the ability to play things in the background, whether it’s music audio or video. That’s what makes YouTube Premium superior even above Spotify, Apple Music, or Tidal where unreleased tracks, leaks, and instrumental audio are mostly not available.

But with this recent price hike, well, users’ frustration may change the course of the subscription rates. Sure, YouTube has been at war with ad blockers for quite some time, but paying this amount would suffocate a lot of pockets. Folks were saying that they’re “going back to Apple Music because of this,” and rightfully so.

Those who subscribed through Apple might face even higher increases as high as 60% from the old price, which appears to be linked to extra fees associated with Apple’s billing system. Ouch.