I'd pay for YouTube Premium if it was un-bundled from Youtube Music to make it cheaper.

No reason YouTube Premium should be more expensive than Spotify or Netflix.

As an additional note - I have previously subscribed to YouTube premium and constantly had issues with it repeatedly logging me out, and reverting back to showing me ads. Frustrating! Sure it wasn't intentional but felt like double-dipping.

How come you think YouTube Premium would be the same cost as Spotify or Netflix? Spotify in particular only has to store and stream audio, and Netflix has far far less video and audio to store than YouTube - they also both only allow somewhat official content on their platforms (you have to register as an artist to upload to Spotify, and you have to be a registered studio to get onto Netflix). YouTube allows unlimited length, 8K, HDR, 60fps video from anyone who signs up with an email and password. I don't have any actual numbers, but I find it difficult to imagine that YouTube Music (storing one cover image and some audio tracks for a whole album) costs them anything in comparison to the main YouTube service.

Well, I guess I'm really talking about the price of the service rather than the cost to run it really (i.e. what would be a competitive price for the service considering other offerings), but appreciate that the price has to be less than their costs.

Although my assumption (which could be incorrect) is that storage is not the main driver for cost. For Netflix and Spotify I assume their major cost would be licencing, which YouTube mostly gets to forgo. For YouTube, I would assume bandwidth / data transfer is the biggest factor.

I never use youtube music, but i'm still paying for premium, because I use youtube a lot and I don't like seeing ads. Completely worth it if you spend enough time on youtube

Obvious Caveat Emptor: you won't get away from sponsored content or first party segue ads that are baked into videos.

Though in the case of Jay Foremans channel; those can actually be entertaining.

Sponsorblock helps with that.

What scenario(s) would you be willing to pay to cover Google's costs, rather than your viewing being subsidized by other users/visitors who are 1) paying, or 2) watching the ads?

When they do you just cancel. That's what I've done with amazon, and my weekly amazon purchases have dropped through the floor.

What about price increases that say match inflation?

not a fan

They launched YouTube Premium Lite in a few specific countries, Denmark being one of them, it was exactly as you describe it, I used it for a while.

However, they've removed that plan again.

Just out of curiosity, what is wrong with YouTube Music?

I don't know about GP, but personally I already have a music streaming subscription so I don't want to pay for yet another one.

Come to think of it, I think I have 2 ATM; Apple Music through my Apple One thing, and through my ISP.