YouTube is trying to target users signing up for Premium with a VPN, trying to access cheaper subscriptions.
Though VPNs are mainly used to protect privacy, they also hide your IP address and can be set to make it appear as if you’re browsing the web from a different, specific country.
With the cost of YouTube Premium varying depending on which country you’re signing up from, it’s easy to see why using a VPN for a discount could be appealing. For example, one month of Premium costs $14 in the US, but the equivalent is around $2.44 in Ukraine.
It seems that YouTube users have been taking full advantage of this loophole for some time, signing up for Premium and setting their country of origin as one where the service is cheaper.
Understandably, YouTube isn’t too happy about this. The company confirmed it was prompting users to update their Premium billing information in cases where the signup location doesn’t match the country they’re currently accessing YouTube from.
There was no mention of the wave of cancellations that some Reddit users complained of. Still, a Google support agent told PC Mag that the company had “initiated the cancelation” of membership where the signup country and access country differed.
Automatic Youtube Premium Cancellation?
byu/Alopez1024 inyoutube
It’s bad news for anyone enjoying a low-cost YouTube Premium subscription. Last year, YouTube hiked the price of Premium for US subscribers from $12 to $14, which could lead to many subscribers canceling their subscriptions completely rather than facing the extra cost.
This news comes the same week as YouTube announced it was testing server-side ads that could render ad blockers useless.