YouTube has decided to discontinue Premium Lite, a low-cost subscription plan that offers ad-free viewing, in select countries, this move comes after two years since its initial launch.
In an email sent to its customers, YouTube announced that Premium Lite subscriptions would no longer be available starting from October 25, 2023.
Initially priced at €6.99 per month, Premium Lite was introduced in select European countries in 2021, including Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.
The service allowed users to enjoy ad-free viewing across a wide range of YouTube applications but did not include other Premium features such as offline downloads or background playback.
Existing Premium Lite subscribers will soon have two options: revert to viewing videos with ads or upgrade to the pricier YouTube Premium.
In the email notifying users of this change, YouTube also mentioned that it would offer a free one-month trial of YouTube Premium to current Premium Lite subscribers, regardless of whether they had previously taken advantage of a trial.
While Premium Lite may not have been widely recognized by users in countries where the service was not available, initial reactions to its discontinuation indicate that it was popular among those who wanted an ad-free YouTube experience without the additional features and cost of YouTube Premium.
This decision to discontinue Premium Lite coincides with Google’s announcement to end its long-standing HTML-based email interface, known for Gmail’s simplicity.
The company stated that the basic HTML view interface will no longer be supported as of January 2024, requiring users to use modern browsers to continue using the service.
