Privacy

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YouTube will ban Premium accounts made through VPN (lemmy.ml)

submitted 18 hours ago by Zerush@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

60 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Based on recent reports, YouTube is actively restricting access to Premium accounts created through VPNs and cracking down on users accessing Premium content across different regions. According to user discussions, YouTube now detects and blocks VPN connections when attempting to stream Premium content[^6][^10].

Some key impacts:

Users report being unable to play YouTube Music through Sonos speakers when using a VPN, with the service becoming accessible only after bypassing VPN connections[^6]
Premium subscribers attempting to access content from different regions than their subscription face connection errors and service disruptions
The restrictions appear to be part of YouTube's broader strategy to enforce regional content licensing and subscription terms

The crackdown coincides with YouTube's increased focus on Premium subscriptions, including showing longer unskippable ads to free users in 2025 to drive Premium adoption[^8].

[^6]: Sonos Community - Unable to play YouTube Music

[^8]: LateNode Community - Why are YouTube users experiencing extremely long, non-skippable advertisements?

[^10]: Reddit r/VPN - Getting around YouTube Premium

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[–] DieserTypMatthias@lemmy.ml 5 points 17 hours ago (3 children)

Just install uBO/use Brave and you don't need Premium.

[–] warm@kbin.earth 37 points 17 hours ago

Dont use brave, use uBlock Origin and Firefox.

Or FreeTube on Desktop.

For mobile, NewPipe or one of its forks, e.g. PipePipe for SponsorBlock too.

[–] artyom@piefed.social 6 points 16 hours ago

You're very brave to make such a suggestion around here.

[–] Zerush@lemmy.ml 5 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

You don't need Premium anyway. For the cost of an YT Premium account you can use Netflix, Rakuten or any other paid streaming service with less money, or even for free in PlutoTV, or channels of public TV of every country, where you can watch movies, documentals, Series, etc for free, without ads. The greed and policy of YT will be its end sooner or later. Ads always can be avoided, uBO, even uBO Lite, Adguard and several others are working fine in YT.

[–] rollin@piefed.social 2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I stopped paying for YouTube when they started cracking down on free users, and stopped using them pretty much entirely. It was hard though - even though I have Netflix, I always found it easier to find interesting and informative things to watch on YouTube than Netflix. I'd watch YouTube several times a day, whereas with Netflix I usually spend about 10 or 15 minutes scrolling through their god-awful UI before closing it and finding something else to do.

[–] Zerush@lemmy.ml 4 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

At least in the EU almost every public TV has an online channel with movies, series, documentals, entertainment, live and/or on demand, all for free and without ads, similar in Pluto TV

Spanish public TV

German public TV

https://tv.ssuiteoffice.com/

[–] eee@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 8 hours ago

You can add arte, too.