When YouTube introduced its Premium Lite tier in March, the goal was to give people a way to see fewer ads on YouTube. It took only three months, but YouTube is already increasing the number of ads that Premium Lite subscribers will see, according to Dextero.
News of the ad hike spread to subscribers through email, as spotted on the TWiT Community forums and reported by German news site Deskmodder.
“We are writing to let you know that beginning 30 June 2025, ads may appear on Shorts, in addition to music content and when you search or browse,” the email reads. “Most videos will continue to remain ad-free.”
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The good news is that if you don’t engage with music videos or YouTube Shorts, then you likely won’t see much of a difference when using the app, aside from a few ads while browsing. Those who do use YouTube for music and Shorts will be the most affected. Even though YouTube Music subscription numbers aren’t the best, YouTube itself continues to be one of the Internet’s most popular music streaming services, so the change will likely affect quite a few people.
When it was introduced, Premium Lite was billed as a way to remove the ads from “most videos” for $7.99 per month, which is just over half the price of the full $13.99 YouTube Premium subscription.
YouTube and its users have had a complicated relationship when it comes to ads. The streaming giant went to war on ad blockers in 2024, making ads as difficult as possible to block. In addition, ads have slowly gotten longer and more plentiful on the free version of the service, which has resulted in a lot of negative feedback from viewers.
And for free users, certain ads are slated to get even more intrusive. In May, YouTube announced that it was using AI to pinpoint the peak moments in any given video and choose that moment to do an ad break. These Peak Points are a move long-used in television, where viewers have to wait for the ad break to view the conclusion to dramatic cliffhangers or otherwise emotional moments.
