Premium ads popped up a bit ago, there were several posts and articles about it. Apparently they're also testing different tiers of premium like Netflix.
They might be referring to people who have it occur due to a technical problem (needing to clear their cache or something). Other than that, tons of my friends and coworkers have Premium and they've never complained of ads, so I don't think it's a normal thing that occurs frequently.
Youtube has been free for so long that people forget that hosting all those videos costs money. They’ll pay for so many streaming services but if you make Youtube anything but a free, ad-free paradise they lose it.
I guess. I never had nor will ever pay for premium, but isn't there premium content? How's that any different than paying for patreon videos of content creators? YouTube just consolidated it.
IIRC that was specifically related to YouTube testing out a new Premium tier that allowed some ads, but also cost less, and only in specific markets.
Not everywhere, and not regular Premium subscriptions, unlike how most posts try to make it sound, including yours. But don't let the facts get in the way.
Don't know, the couple of articles I saw going around didn't actually have any actual info in them, just the report by a random person in Germany which is one of the Premium Lite (or whatever they want to call it) regions.
I don't really care that much to be honest. I pay for YouTube Premium. My region doesn't have a Lite option. I pay for several reasons, not just the lack of ads. I pay so the content creators I watch get paid more for my view. I pay for no ads. I pay for the bundled YouTube Music. All of those are part of my usage. The lack of ads is only one aspect. For others that may be different, and for them the price justification may be different as well if they're only paying to remove ads.
Not to mention that partial ad experiences at a lower cost are an inevitable middle option to regular ad and no-ad options. YouTube isn't anywhere near the first to do this, and they definitely won't be the last. Complaining about it will do absolutely nothing, they don't give a shit and the only people that could force a change are shareholders, who only care about profits at this point. Customer satisfaction for a company like Google means fucking nothing.
So why expend the energy? That can be focused elsewhere to much more effect.