Update (June 20, 2:50 pm ET): Google has indirectly confirmed that it is tightening things up to make sure every YouTube Premium user pays the price for their region.
What you need to know
- Many YouTube Premium users are experiencing random cancellations, likely due to using VPNs for cheaper rates.
- A Reddit user confirmed with customer support that changes in their location led to their subscription being canceled.
- Customer service suggests affected users re-subscribe using their local address and payment method.
Several YouTube Premium users see their memberships randomly canceled, likely because they used a VPN to get a cheaper rate.
A recent thread on Reddit highlighted a wave of YouTube Premium subscriptions being axed. It appears that these cancellations are linked to users resorting to VPN services in order to score cheaper rates by taking advantage of regional pricing loopholes (via Android Authority).
YouTube offers a tiered pricing system for its Premium service to account for differences in global purchasing power. However, some users have been gaming it by using VPN services to fake their location and get cheaper rates. This trick undermines the fairness of YouTube's regional pricing model.
To illustrate the price disparity, a Premium subscription in Ukraine costs £2.30 per month, whereas it normally costs $13.99 per month in the US.
By exploiting regional pricing differences with VPNs, some users managed to get YouTube Premium for a fraction of the cost in their home market. Although the subscription worked fine after the initial VPN trick, Google now seems to be cracking down on this loophole in its pricing system.
In one case, a Reddit user contacted YouTube customer support about their canceled subscription. The response suggested that the user's location had supposedly changed from the one they used at signup.
Customer service also advised affected users to re-subscribe using their local address and a payment method from their region. This apparent crackdown seems to be aimed at enforcing regional pricing for YouTube Premium.
We've reached out to Google to confirm if the company is targeting VPN-sourced YouTube Premium subscriptions and will update this article once we hear back.
Notably, reports of subscription cancellations aren't limited to Ukrainian users who use VPNs. Users from multiple countries who used VPNs to score cheaper YouTube Premium subscriptions have reported cancellations as well.
To regain access to YouTube Premium, affected users need to re-subscribe using their verified location details.
Update
A YouTube spokesperson told Android Central in an emailed statement that the service has implemented stricter measures to ensure regional pricing compliance for YouTube Premium subscriptions.
"To provide the most accurate plans and offers available, we have systems in place to determine the country of our users," the spokesperson said. "In instances where the signup country does not match where the user is accessing YouTube, we're asking members to update their billing information to their current country of residence."
