> I’ve paid for YouTube Premium from the beginning (remember YouTube Red?) and it has been a mostly great service for 10+ years.
I struggle to see the difference between Youtube Premium and regular Youtube with the exception of ads.
It's the same shitty recommendation algorithm. It's the same "you will watch shorts or else". It's the same nerfed unusable search. It's the same "we randomly decided that your bandwidth isn't enough, here's a 480p version of the video you're currently watching".
Yes, it’s mostly just the ads. There are some nice-to-haves like video downloads and background audio on the iOS app. I almost never use search, recommendations, or shorts, but I’m sure you’re right to criticize those features.
Can you download the videos to mp4 or is it some proprietary DRM thing that only plays on YouTube? If not that just sounds like a worse version of yt-dlp
Definitely the latter. On the iOS app you choose videos to download, and I believe they only work for 30 days without Internet access. I use yt-dlp for videos I want to archive, but I use the YouTube app downloads for one-off stuff like loading up my iPad before a flight.
I've stopped recommending this (except for in-person to friends) because it's so valuable, and I'm seriously worried about it getting stomped by YouTube.
> difference between Youtube Premium and regular Youtube with the exception of ads.
Yeah. That's the difference. That's literally it, the rest is window dressing. You are choosing the monetization strategy: ads or money. If you're not living paycheck-to-paycheck, and you watch a lot of YouTube, paying $13 or whatever is the sensible choice.
Yes, lots of things about the product suck, as you've described. But the content on it is good and the recommendation algorithm is pretty good, at least in its obvious goal of bringing me to new-to-me channels on a regular basis.
I struggle to see the difference between Youtube Premium and regular Youtube with the exception of ads.
It's the same shitty recommendation algorithm. It's the same "you will watch shorts or else". It's the same nerfed unusable search. It's the same "we randomly decided that your bandwidth isn't enough, here's a 480p version of the video you're currently watching".