YouTube appears to be running a experiment that could add a new feature to Premium, but take away a feature from free users.

For a content streaming platform, the core of a premium subscription is to give users an ad-free experience because ads can ruin the viewing experience. Given how frequently ads appear on YouTube videos, the ad-free experience seems more essential than ever for enjoying content viewing on the platform.

I can't responsibly compare YouTube and Nebula without giving some sort of disclosure that these video platforms aren't exactly as comparable as two mid-range noise-cancelling earbuds. Where the earbuds might be intended for exactly the same audience while ...

Google has closed loopholes that allowed free YouTube background playback, limiting the feature to YouTube Premium subscribers across platforms.

The company reported 325 million paid subscriptions in its fourth quarter across consumer services, which includes YouTube Premium and more.

YouTube's effort in convincing viewers and Madison Avenue that its product is as premium as traditional TV appears to be working.This story first appears at TheDesk.net, a premium source for original news and analysis on the business of media and technology.

The company said it now has 325 million paying users across Google One and YouTube Premium, up from 300 million users three months earlier.

Looking deeper into the fiscal results themselves, YouTube ads brought in $11.38 billion in the last quarter, compared to $10.47 billion in last year's report. Anecdotally, I can well believe this figure, as YouTube's ad frequency ramped up at such a rate towards the end of 2025 that I finally caved and bought a YouTube Premium subscription myself.