The Shoutbox
There's some other stuff like higher bitrate, downloads, blah blah, but it's all just extra bits on top of the core stuff.

Being able to fire up any video and have it play immediately with no ads is really, really nice.
I don't know, I haven't gotten into the weeds. All I know is:

1) No ads.
2) YouTube Music included.

I paid for it on the basis of the first feature alone, which is worth it if you watch any shows with regularity on YT and/or watch it a bit just about every day, which I absolutely do. And I'd say it's actually kind of a bargain if you use it for #2 instead of some other music streaming service. But ultimately YT Music was just gravy.
I’m also hyper-aware of all the “services” and how those little things add up.

Walmart+ < Amazon Prime, but I get it for free with my discount phone plan, which also eliminated the need for an ISP.

I just hate signing up for services, worried that you look down one day and see a 2010 new car payment.
Originally Posted by John-Connor
YouTube Music &gt; Spotify..
I’m guessing you can make ad-free playlists on YT? Opposed to Spotify, where you are fed “music similar to”?
Originally Posted by John McClane
with all that said i still say it’s a waste. unless you need audio to play with your screen locked, which could be easily fixed with a 99¢ option. but nah, the greedy gotta greed
The screen lock on iPhone works about 75% of the time. When it goes blank, you can play the “open it and try again game” until success.

The killer app is “playing YT in the background” so that you can use your mobile browser for something else. The fact that it will play in the background on desktop, doesn’t help their cause.
YouTube Music > Spotify..
Originally Posted by Yoda
I'd actually recommend it, dd. …
Part of my struggle comes from being a current NC A&T student 👀 and not being able to get the student discount.

For an undisclosed reason (and we have gmail accounts) they are set to not allow a connection to a pay service.
with all that said i still say it’s a waste. unless you need audio to play with your screen locked, which could be easily fixed with a 99¢ option. but nah, the greedy gotta greed
I'd actually recommend it, dd. When I saw it was a thing years ago I thought it was stupid and couldn't imagine ever springing for something like that...but then more and more stuff (full shows/series, sometimes) my wife and I actually watched regularly ended up on there, and I realized I was using it for a decent chunk of time every single day. And, predictably there were more ads in the free version.

Anyway, went for it a year and change ago, or something, and it's a no-brainer now, well worth it. Particularly since I realized, after far too long, that it includes YouTube Music, which I can stream on my phone/in the car/whatever and is a really solid Spotify replacement. If you actually use that the effective value goes way up, too.
i used YT premium for a free trial once, but only because i had a topic i was researching. paying for YT is more wasteful
than avocados.
Originally Posted by John McClane
won’t be long before YouTube goes full 1984, so enjoy it while it lasts
Resisting the urge to go YouTube Premium is the biggest struggle in my life.
Fortunately, there are some synth livestreams that methadone me up.

And, I can’t wait for the day…


Have fun popping your strings, trying to tune a Martin to play that intro.