YouTube reminds me everyday that life would be better with Premium. No ads, background play, offline downloads and YouTube Music — the pitch is strong. And still I have not clicked “Subscribe,” unable to overcome the lack of one specific option: there is no decidedly couples-oriented plan.
That’s no minor quibble. It’s the fundamental — very present! — flaw in YouTube Premium’s pricing approach, and it’s enough to keep me, and many others, away from paying.
The heart of the matter: The plan mismatch
There are three levels of YouTube Premium in most areas: Student, Individual and Family (up to six family members). The Individual plan is worth it for one-person viewing. Family which is a good choice for big households. What doesn’t exist is the middle ground — two people who live together, both of whom want an ad-free YouTube and background play, without having to pay for four extra empty seats.
There’s no point in wasting money on two Individual plans. The Family plan costs less than two solos, but it does come with strings: YouTube now enforces householding, so you can’t really “gift” any unused slots to family members living elsewhere. After Netflix showed us all just how messy account-sharing crackdowns can get, I’m not especially hankering to play eligibility roulette with YouTube, either.
Households don’t come in YouTube’s pricing
Real-life living situations don’t usually mould into a tidy explanation between one person or six. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an average household runs just under 2.5 people, and that rough figure is true in much of the developed world. In practice, it means tons of couples, roommates and two-adult homes — exactly the users Premium’s current roster isn’t serving well.
Google’s family system is right to require that its members live under one roof. But if there are only two of you, paying for a six-slot plan seems wasteful by design. It’s a bad psychological fit as well: An empty seat suggests you are overpaying, even if the numbers barely win when compared to two solos.
This matters at scale. YouTube says Music and Premium together now have more than 100 million subscribers. The next cohort: people who use YouTube daily but haven’t subscribed, will increasingly be won over by plans that accommodate how they actually live.
Features don’t get it done
There are definitely upsides to Premium, but most aren’t compelling enough so as not to be able to overcome the plan mismatch. Contemporary browsers can already half-assedly approximate some of the experience — background play, picture-in-picture, and robust ad-blocking are present in offerings like Brave, while even mainstream browsers like Microsoft Edge have tried to woo users with media controls that make YouTube less torture without forking over money.
YouTube has gone after ad blockers and third-party clients hard, and it’s well within its rights to do so. But the broader lesson is that if consumers feel they can recreate key perks using software they already use, then are less likely to stomach awkward pricing just to make it official.
There’s also the product reality. Anyway, paying for Premium won’t change anything about YouTube’s generally bad recommendation quality, the Shorts deluge, or the surging sundry low-effort content that clogs Trending on the daily anyway. And although YouTube Music has gotten better, it lags competitors in social listening and collaboration tools. Spotify’s Jam and Blend, for instance, are sticky network effects that Premium can’t fully compete with today.
What a Duo tier would mean
There’s precedent. YouTube has quietly experimented with a two-person plan in markets such as France, Hong Kong, India and Taiwan, selling it for about one-and-a-half times the cost of an Individual subscription. That’s precisely the value framing that makes sense: pay meaningfully less than two solos, avoid a wasteful oversize family plan and be within household rules.
Competitors show why this works. Spotify’s Duo plan was a retention engine; the company has attributed multi-account options to better satisfaction and higher average revenue per user in investor communications. It’s simple logic: meet couples where they are, and they will come.
Spread this internationally and YouTube would win many an agnostic — myself included. The Duo idea reflects how a lot of us live and watch: two people, one home, one fair price.
The bottom line
I don’t need Premium to be less expensive. I need it to be right-sized. Today’s lineup requires one to choose between overpaying for two solos, or overbuying a family plan. That’s the big drawback that prevents me from subscribing.
If YouTube wants to uncap its next wave of growth, the fix is clear: roll out a Duo tier worldwide, clean up household rules and entice people with a few exclusive, undeniably Premium perks.
Hand two people a plan that acknowledges their reality, and the “Subscribe” button is a lot easier to click.