Hear me out: YouTube Premium is the best-value streaming service

The number of subscriptions is growing in 2022. I currently have subscriptions to three periodicals, two food boxes, maybe ten Substacks, and a monthly wine service. It's a lot, but at least I know what I'm getting with the most of them; if I subscribe for food, I get food; if I subscribe for wine, I get wine.

Not so much for streaming services. When you join up for a streaming service, you may already be aware of what is offered, but it is unknown what may be added or removed from the library. You would need memberships to at least ten different streaming services if you wanted (legal!) access to all the new television that is being released, let alone the older television that you do not already possess. Netflix, Neon, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+ Acorn, and Shudder are just a few of the latest streaming services on our list; there are many more that you may subscribe to in this nation.

There isn't a best streaming service, in my opinion; they are all useful in different ways. What streaming service offers the most value, though? That's easy for me: YouTube Premium.

My choice to pay $11.99 a month for YouTube Premium came about as a result of a terrible late-night incident.

For years, I've watched YouTube videos before going to sleep because I prefer their chatter to that of my own inner monologue. These movies, which frequently feature soft-spoken men playing video games, are normally extremely lengthy, so I would usually nod off well before they ended or any advertisements began.

Up until one night in 2019, when I woke up nine minutes into an Among Us tutorial to an advertisement. I sluggishly clattered a few keys and skipped the advertisement.

I wasn't paying attention to the next video when I went back to sleep. No, I was listening intently to my inner voice, which asked, "How many advertisements have you subconsciously taken in over the past few years? What dark corners of your mind are filled with the rules of free-to-play games you don't intend to play... yet?"

I clicked "Premium" on YouTube that morning after hearing more soft-voiced men playing video games when I woke up, and I entered my credit card information. I haven't turned back after watching streaming content for more than 5,740 hours, or 239 days.

The apparent benefit of purchasing YouTube Premium is to remove advertising from your viewing experience. The last thing you want is a HelloFresh advertisement with one of your favourite New Zealand comedians popping up midway through and destroying the atmosphere, whether you use the website as background noise or have channels you religiously watch. This is a particularly potent selling point for parents of children who enjoy watching hour-long films of large machinery.

You can play videos on your phone in the background with Premium, just like you can with Spotify or your favourite podcast app. You may download movies to watch offline, which is a tool I recently used to rewatch Kate Bush live performances while flying, or you can use it to enjoy some of the many songs that aren't available anywhere else, like this Spice Girls and Disturbed mash-up. Your own decisions may differ.

If you want to completely cancel your Spotify or Apple Music subscriptions, YouTube Music is included in the base Premium subscription and has a larger music library than either of them. In addition to the 70 million or so songs that are shared by pretty much all major streamers, YouTube Music also has many non-official performances and remixes of songs. Additionally, I've discovered that the algorithm seems to be more focused than either Spotify or Apple Music, since it has yet to suggest to me any songs by a RuPaul's Drag Race contestant, in contrast to those two services.

I finally upgraded to Premium's family plan because I am a saint awaiting canonisation and handed one of my four family plan spaces to a friend who just had a baby. I aim to progressively distribute the remaining places to people who have earned my favour, like Olivia Colman in The Favourite, in a strategy that is almost guaranteed to eliminate myself from canonical consideration. If you have a Premium family plan, you can do the same thing or simply use it as you would for your actual family.

There are, of course, certain drawbacks. I can view the roughly 1,000 recap/rucap shows to try to comprehend what happened, but I can't watch the new RuPaul's Drag Race on YouTube Premium. It should be emphasised that YouTube lacks the same level of quality control as other for-pay streaming providers and is a significant source of damaging disinformation. However, it also lacks complete episodes of Glee, so perhaps everything balances out.