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

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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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[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 3 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

Nebula seems promising. It's reasonably priced and because they charge money there are no ads. I can afford it while I can't afford the amounts people ask for on Patreon. But I don't know whether it can scale up while paying the creators enough and keeping the price to users low.

[–] rollin@piefed.social 2 points 14 hours ago

Just had a look - $6 a month, based in NYC. Definitely better than giving YouTube money, for now at least. They say they have a 50/50 profit sharing model with creators - profit presumably is after salaries (including bonuses?) have been paid, so it's not clear exactly how much of your subscription does in fact go to the video creators. Still, a better option than YouTube, if only to support competition.