Google is already making YouTube Premium Lite worse

Summary

YouTube is adding more ads to Premium Lite, specifically targeting YouTube Shorts.
Premium Lite provides fewer ads at $8 a month but lacks other Premium features, like background play.
YouTube Premium Lite is still mostly ad-free, but how much longer will that last? It feels like Premium Lite is too good to be true.

YouTube Premium Lite only launched in the US two months ago, but Google is already making changes to its more affordable YouTube Premium alternative.

YouTube has begun to email Premium Lite customers to inform them that more ads will soon be appearing on YouTube for them (via Neowin). Right now, YouTube Premium Lite offers an ad-free experience on “most videos,” with the primary exception being music videos. At the end of June, that will reportedly be changed to also now include YouTube Shorts. Here’s the email YouTube sent out:

“Thank you for being a Premium Lite member. Premium Lite offers fewer interruptions so you can watch more of the YouTube you love,” YouTube said in its email to Premium Lite subscribers (via the TWiT.community forum). “We are writing to let you know that beginning 30 June 2025, ads may appear on Shorts, in addition to music content and when you search or browse. Most videos will continue to remain ad-free.”

Free trial: 1-month free trial
Ads: Most content ad-free
Downloads and background play: No

YouTube Premium Lite removes most ads from YouTube for $8 a month.

I tested YouTube Premium Lite to see how many ads it really got rid of

YouTube Premium Lite is here, and it shocked me.

It was too good to last

Will YouTube Premium Lite get worse over time?

YouTube / Pocket-lint

While YouTube introducing ads on Shorts for Premium Lite subscribers isn’t the worst thing that could’ve possibly happened, it’s still a bummer for Premium Lite users who enjoy browsing Shorts.

…what worries me is that the service isn’t even six months old in the US and YouTube is already making changes to it.

If you’re unfamiliar with YouTube Premium Lite, it’s a more affordable alternative to YouTube Premium, which offers fewer benefits. Notably, Premium Lite doesn’t include background play, offline downloads, or YouTube Music. Essentially, all YouTube Premium Lite does is lower the amount of ads users experience. If you don’t watch music content on YouTube or Shorts, for the most part, you won’t experience any ads with Premium Lite. This makes it a solid alternative for users who don’t care for any of the extra features Premium offers, and are just interested in seeing fewer ads.

Even with the changes being made, Google still says that “most videos will remain ad-free,” which is still the case. But what worries me is that the service isn’t even six months old in the US and YouTube is already making changes to it. It almost feels like its initial offering was too good to be true.

…I fear YouTube won’t be able to resist the urge to add more ads to Premium Lite in the future.

YouTube Premium Lite currently costs $8 a month in the US and YouTube Premium costs $14 a month, so it does offer quite good value if you’re looking to free yourself from the ad-infestation that YouTube has become over the past several years. However, my biggest fear is that this is just the start of the changes YouTube will make to Premium Lite over time, to entice more people to go with its more expensive Premium tier instead.

I hope I’m wrong, and this change to Premium Lite is just a simple course correction being done by YouTube, and that Premium Lite will remain the way it is now for the foreseeable future. But I fear YouTube won’t be able to resist the urge to add more ads to Premium Lite in the future, to make it less of an ad-free tier, and more of a limited ads tier.

YouTube Premium Lite is currently available in the US, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, the UK, Australia, Germany, and Thailand. Ads will begin appearing on Shorts for YouTube Premium Lite subscribers on June 30, 2025.