Google may be close to launching YouTube Premium Lite

is a news editor covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme. YouTube is about to officially launch a cheaper, “premium lite” version of its subscription service in the US, Australia, Germany and Thailand, according to Bloomberg. This new tier will “target viewers who primarily want to watch programs other than music videos,” Bloomberg says. The publication didn’t say what the price might be. YouTube piloted a no-ads version of a tier called Premium Lite in some European countries beginning in 2021 before axing the plan in 2023. But the company confirmed to The Verge in October that it was testing a “different version” of Premium Lite, and at least one user reported that the new version had limited ads. That user saw that the price of Premium Lite was $8.99 AUD per month (vs. $16.99 AUD for regular YouTube Premium). In a statement, YouTube spokesperson Paul Pennington tells The Verge that the company has been testing “a new Y ... Read full article.