Rita El Khoury / Android Authority I’ve been a YouTube Premium subscriber for many years now, ever since the Premium Family plan became available in Lebanon when I was living there. Other subscriptions have come and gone in that time, but not YouTube; it’s the one monthly payment I gladly make because I know it supports creators I like and saves me hours of frustration with endless ads on every device my husband and I own. But YouTube Premium isn’t perfect. Every few months, I’ll hear about a new experiment or new feature exclusive to Premium users, and think, “Gah, this isn’t what I want!” If it were up to me, YouTube would add more robust controls and customizations and offer them to Premium subscribers, instead of wasting time reinventing the wheel with a new comment page look or silly autoplay and Shorts hooks. Specifically, there are five features I wish YouTube would add that I’d be willing to pay more for. Here they are. Which features would you like to see in YouTube Premium? 14 votes Full home page control and customization 7 % Per channel custom playback speed, captions, and video quality 0 % More robust blocking for channels, keywords, and users 43 % Subcription grouping and organization 14 % A better YouTube experience on smart TVs 36 % Something else (tell us in the comments) 0 % Full home page control and customization Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority I grew up in the era of personal customization, not algorithmic bastardization. I love having control over what I see in any app, service, or device I use. Instead, companies have slowly taken over and decided they would show me what they think I want, without giving me control over it, and YouTube is the biggest culprit. I don’t have any control over the app’s home screen, but I wish I had all the control. I want to choose what shows up from my subscriptions and recommended videos. Give me a dial at the top that gives me more recommended videos on one side or limits my feed to recently published videos from the channels I follow on the other. Or a filter if that’s easier, and no, the New to you option isn’t enough. Also, let me sort those videos by most recent, most watched, or most liked so I can quickly find something that gets my interest. And let me select how many Shorts (if any) I want to see on my home screen. The Show fewer Shorts option doesn’t cut it, especially not when YouTube sometimes opens to an auto-playing Short instead of the home page. YouTube decided to show me what it thinks I want instead of letting me choose what I want to see. I’m also jealous of third-party YouTube clients like SmartTube that offer other home page customizations, like larger or smaller video thumbnail tiles. I’d like that, too, plus an option to hide Breaking News videos, Posts (even if they’re coming from channels I follow), Members videos I can’t watch because I’m not a paying subscriber, and random “ads” for Originals or Exclusives that I’m not interested in. Don’t want to miss the best from Android Authority? Set us as a favorite source in Google Discover to never miss our latest exclusive reports, expert analysis, and much more. to never miss our latest exclusive reports, expert analysis, and much more. You can also set us as a preferred source in Google Search by clicking the button below. Custom playback speed (and other settings) per channel Rita El Khoury / Android Authority Not every YouTube channel I watch is equal, so why does YouTube treat them all equally? Each time I re-open the app on my phone, web browser, or Google TV Streamer, it reverts back to default playback settings (speed, captions or not, video quality) for all channels, and I find that infuriating. I’d like to speed up videos from some channels to 1.5x, but keep football recaps at 1.0x. I want to enable auto-translated captions on videos from the few Spanish channels I follow since I’m not fluent in the language, but keep captions off on several other channels. I prefer my sports videos in 4K, but tech or comedy videos can stay at 1080p to stream faster and use less data. And more importantly, I’d like those preferences to carry across devices so I don’t have to fiddle with them all the time, especially not on the TV, where every option is a few clicks away. I can’t do that now, and I wish YouTube would provide this option so power users who pay for the service can choose exactly how they want to watch each channel. More robust blocking functionality Ryan Haines / Android Authority I’m not the only one who gets annoyed by certain channels or keywords repeatedly popping up in their feed or search results without any way to block them. My colleague C. Scott feels the same way and wishes there was a block channel option, and so do 96% of the 600+ Android Authority readers who answered his poll. I don’t just want to keep teaching the algorithm, “I’m not interested in this” and “Don’t recommend this,” I want a nuclear block option that I can immediately apply to all misleading accounts. Any time I see a channel that copies others’ content without crediting them, uses misleading titles (football recaps are a big victim of this), spreads false info, or includes clearly AI-generated content (stock videos and AI voiceovers for travel channels are such a turn off), I can block that. And poof, it goes away from my recommendations, search results, similar videos, or any playlists I check out. I want a nuclear option to block any misleading, baiting, or AI channel I come across. I’d also like to block jerks in the comment sections of some videos to stop their words from ever appearing in front of me, certain keywords or hashtags from being served to me, or even Shorts — altogether or Shorts from channels I don’t follow. And can I please completely block any livestreams? Those keep popping up when I’m swiping through Shorts, and no matter how many times I tell the algorithm I’m not interested, the most random Shorts from channels I don’t follow and on topics I’m not even remotely interested in keep re-appearing. Channel grouping or organization Rita El Khoury / Android Authority My YouTube interests are varied, and so are my channel subscriptions. There’s food, tech, comedy, sports, interior design, music, travel, and more, and having all those channels in one single list is counter-productive to me. I want channel grouping and better organization, something akin to folders or tags to separate the madness beyong just sorting alphabetically or by most recent video published. ure, there are times when I appreciate jumping between topics and enjoy the variety of my subscriptions, but there are also times when I want to lose myself in something very specific. Channel folders or tags would allow me to catch recaps of all the football and tennis games I haven’t watched live, see what the tech bloggers think about the new Pixel Watch 4, check out all the song recaps when the Eurovision National Final season starts, relax to some good stand-up comedy, or have binge-watching sessions of travel or food or interior design videos. It would also allow me to silo my homescreen into specific interests so each one feels like a separate YouTube experience. A better experience on my TV Rita El Khoury / Android Authority About 80% of my YouTube watching happens on my Google TV Streamer, yet I reckon that this is the worst platform to watch on. Every few weeks, I feel like there’s a new experiment on my Home tab; sometimes, it’s a new and un-removable Breaking News row, sometimes it’s a YouTube Premium exclusive or premiere. The subscriptions tab can’t be sorted at all, it’s just a random order of channels, which I feel is ranked by how likely I am to check their videos, but makes it impossible to find a channel I haven’t watched for a few days (let alone weeks). And video controls like playback speed are hidden a few menus deep. It’s even less customizable than the mobile or web app, and that is saying something. If YouTube wanted to earn my undying loyalty, it would make its app better and more customizable on smart TVs. A few bonus requests that are unlikely to happen Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority I know it’s not happening, but I wish YouTube would add a SponsorBlock feature like many third-party clients offer. I know creators need their money from sponsored segments, but I’m already paying for Premium, I don’t want more ads to disrupt my watching. For now, the skip ahead feature with the watching/interest graph helps me jump ahead to the end of a sponsor segment, so I don’t miss this all that much, but a proper toggle would be welcome. More granular video quality options à la SmartTube would be cool, too, with different codecs and bit rates, especially when I’m somewhere with a slow or limited internet connection. And how about something like the Dearrow extension across all YouTube apps that replaces thumbnails and titles with something more truthful. There’s a fat chance of any of these features coming to YouTube, so I’m going to bite my tongue and pretend I didn’t utter any of these words. The other ones, though? I think many of them are feasible for the YouTube team, and I wish they’d implement them, even if they were part of a more expensive Super Premium or Premium Deluxe package. I’d actually pay more to get all of this control and customization in my experience. Follow