Also in defense of Google - I'm still grandfathered in to the $8 plan for YouTube premium because I signed up and have remained subscribed since 2013 when they offered promotional pricing at the beginning of Google Play Music. Years later, they added YouTube Red (now Premium) to the subscription which REALLY sweetened the pot. But they've never bumped my subscription price up.
Ah yes, let’s defend Google for not raising the price of features that were free to begin with like listening with screen off and background listening? Not really sure how much lower the bar can get here
IDK why people are downvoting. I could see it being decent for YT Music but for YT Premium you’re literally paying for features free software can do for free. So it’s not really a good deal by any metric.
Alright, can you elaborate on these ways? You could support a particular creator via Patreon, or by buying their merch, sure. What if somebody you've never watched before releases a very good video that you stumble upon and watch? What if you don't have the financial resources to be a part of dozens of separate patreons?
As far as I'm concerned, YT Premium is the best way for me to support all of the creators behind the videos I watch. For me, I also like YT Music so this ends up being a pretty good deal overall
You can easily buy memberships for channels, which gives more money than premium. In fact, most memberships for channels I frequent are $0.99 a month, so you can definitely afford to support 10-15 of them for the same price as premium.
That’s great that it’s a good deal for you, but it doesn’t change the fact that google took features that were free to use and locked them behind a paywall. So by default it’s a bad deal on that front alone.
I don't think that's what a bad deal is. I make decisions based on what is a good deal for me and things I care about.
With YT Premium for $10/mo I get:
support unlimited amount of creators based on watch time
no ads
YT Music (which is pretty good imo)
Support infrastructure behind service
Without YT Premium for $10/mo I get:
support 10 creators directly
ads (or constantly fight battle to block them)
Now, I fully agree that removing features that were previously paid is a dick move, but those aren't why I have YT Premium anyways. I just don't think it is an objectively "bad" deal
It's a free app that syncs files to a central location. In my case, I sync any photo or video I take on my Pixel 7 to my Pixel 1. The Photos app on my Pixel 1 then uploads the new photos to Google Photos.
They dont care. All that matters is what the uploading device is.
I do this with my Pixel 4a, use it to upload all my pictures from my Sony cameras and Fuji camera. Metadata still even says which camera took it.
They stopped this option though, i think the last one to allow this was the Pixel 5. But those devices are all still allowed unlimited standard quality uploads. Great for viewing on phones/tablet. Just not print quality.
Be prepared to pay when it dies. I assumed it wouldn't count when I got a new phone. It does. So now they want me to sign up for a plan. Well, now they want me to pay more for a higher tier. I got a nas instead. I'm cancelling the plan.
I forgot that I had years of free uploads from my Pixel 2. That eventually expired. But I never had to pay for those uploads.
I also had 100 extra GB for two years for being one of the first Google Maps guides, populating the map with the first photos of businesses etc. When that expired, I did have to start paying. Google are smart - they got me addicted to having all my files right there wherever I was. It's only $20ish per year for that tier, I have been happy to pay for it. I think this might be what happened to you. You may have had some sort of promotion that expired.
I never had to do this with all the media I uploaded via my Pixel 2 back when it has those benefits. Everything I uploaded that way counts zero toward my storage cap, to this day.
Maybe I’m just using lots of storage as I’ve got kids and that means lots of photos and videos. However, it seemed odd at the time, however it’s a few years since I noticed.