YouTube has been in the consumer tech news these days for mostly one reason – its efforts in blocking ad blockers. The method in doing so approved by the video hosting and streaming platform is, naturally, paying for a premium subscription. It does cost quite the pretty penny, so naturally some are working around this by using VPNs in search of lower prices in other regions. Though it looks like the Google subsidiary is aware of this and has begun clamping down.
A Reddit thread started by u/Alopez1024 describes an abrupt cancellation of their YouTube Premium subscription, for no initially apparent reason. Other users started chiming in, stating that they have also had their subscriptions cut. As it turns out, for most of these users, one thing they had in common was that they were using VPNs to get lower prices for their monthly payment, with a common country seemingly being Ukraine and Turkey.
One of the users in the thread, going by u/McNuggetty, claims to have spoken to a customer service rep. They were told that the reason for their YouTube Premium subscription was that they were detected to have “moved” to a different location. Another user, u/jessepower13, says that the service now requires a a card with an address in the subscribing country, which in turn needs a bank account in said country, as per u/n8te85.
Of course, it’s not a universal experience, as some others in the thread have shared that their YouTube Premium subscription have not been cut despite being in the same situation. At any rate, while it should be a thing that’s independent of its ad block blocking spree, one would probably not be blamed for seeing the two as related.
