Enlarge (credit: Jericho / Ron Amadeo)
Google has a nasty surprise for YouTube Premium subscribers: a price increase. The price is going up $2 for a single-person subscription in the US (and presumably other countries), from $11.99 to 13.99 per month. If you're subscribing through the iOS App Store, the price is now $18.99 due to Apple's 30 percent tax. The hike follows a price increase to the YouTube Premium family plan less than a year ago.
Premium gives you ad-free access to YouTube and YouTube Music, along with background playback for YouTube Music. Google has also tried to sweeten the deal lately with enhanced bitrates for 1080p videos. It's also possible to subscribe only to YouTube Music, though its price is also increasing, from $9.99 per month to $10.99.
Google didn't make any kind of official announcement about this price change. 9to5Google, which was the first to notice it, got a statement from a YouTube spokesperson: