YouTube just paywalled another basic feature, but I’ve already found a better alternative

If there’s one service that perfectly exemplifies the phenomenon of “enshittification” that pervades our lives, it’s YouTube Premium.

Now, if you are a YouTube Premium subscriber, you may find this statement bizarre. After all, through the subscription service, you get features that drastically improve YouTube and YouTube Music, like ad-free videos, downloads, and background play.

However, YouTube Premium’s value lies not in what it offers, but in how bad the free YouTube experience has become.

After a few experiments with free trials and a couple of paid months, I decided YouTube Premium wasn’t for me.

But now, thanks to the removal of even more features from the free service, I am even more determined not to pay Google a penny for YouTube.

It’s unacceptable how much Google has crushed YouTube, and my answer is to reduce my usage even more.

Google just removed a feature we all took for granted

This is a poor way to get us to pay money for YouTube

After a brief and controversial trial run in September 2025, Google has rolled out caps on lyric views in YouTube Music for good.

Free users will be limited to five views of lyrics before they are directed to YouTube Music Premium. After the limit is met, the lyrics window will only show the first lines of a song.

I’m almost taken aback by how user-unfriendly this change is. Listening to the free tier of YouTube Music was a poor experience to begin with, and this just makes it worse.

I’ve become so accustomed to tapping the lyrics button on my music app of choice that I immediately thought that I couldn’t live without it. But then I realized that this isn’t such a big problem at all.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been listening to smaller bands, whose lyrics don’t appear on any music streaming app. Therefore, I have to search for the lyrics, which, as it turns out, is not a problem in the slightest.

Even Spotify, which I switched from after far too many poor design choices, abandoned its idea to paywall lyrics.

Instead, Spotify took the correct approach, which was to add value to its premium subscription by allowing users to download lyrics offline while adding lyric translations for all users.

I’m glad I left Spotify, but I do respect the decisions it’s made with regard to its lyrics.

While the fact that the translations are AI-powered is another blow against professional translators, I don’t think Spotify would have ever attempted to translate the millions of songs in its library without the help of AI.

But while Spotify attempts to balance increasing subscription prices with value, Google seems determined to do things the hard way by hobbling the free tier to force subscriptions.

It’s not just lyrics; things are getting worse across the board for us lowly free YouTube users.

YouTube is now blocking the easiest background play loophole

Another step to Premium dominance

For as long as Google has paywalled background play, there have been loopholes allowing users to circumvent the restrictions.

The simplest one was to play YouTube through a mobile web browser, which would continue to play videos even when you minimized the app or locked your phone.

However, after a spate of user reports complaining that this method no longer worked, Google released a statement confirming this was a deliberate change to “ensure consistency across all our platforms.”

The ironic thing is that I started using this loophole after I was presented with a five-minute ad for the first time.

It soon became common practice for me to minimize the video and do something else until the ad was over, at which point I would switch back.

Closing the loophole I was using to avoid an awful feature is something I’m not surprised Google did, but I am disappointed.

The five-minute ad wasn’t an exception. I see ads that last for minutes every time I open YouTube. It’s gotten to the point where I’ve avoided watching videos because of the ads.

These ads are what have pushed me closest to a YouTube Premium subscription, but I’m so insulted by the aggressive tactics.

Subscription services should add value to a quality service

They shouldn’t compensate for a crippled free tier

Pointing out that the state of subscription services in 2026 is not great feels like stating the obvious. Nevertheless, it must be done, and alternatives have to be highlighted and supported.

For example, my music app of choice, Tidal, offers the most streamlined, highest-quality music-streaming experience on the Play Store.

While it isn’t perfect (its most notable missing feature is cross-device synchronization), it doesn’t hamper its free service to push us to subscribe. Even then, it’s still slightly cheaper than Spotify or YouTube Music.

In the meantime, you can easily circumvent the lyrics paywall. Musixmatch Lyrics offers free lyrics, and the best part is that you can display them as a floating widget, so you don’t need to keep changing apps to check a line.

Frustratingly for me, it doesn’t work with Tidal, but if you start playing a song on YouTube Music, the lyrics will instantly appear. However, when it comes to background playing, there’s now no easy way to avoid it.