VIDEO LITE: YouTube Premium features without the Fr 17.90/m fee
YouTube Premium costs 17.90 francs per month in Switzerland. The iPhone app that covers its main features for free, with three limitations to be aware of beforehand.
In Switzerland, a single YouTube Premium subscription costs 17.90 francs per month, while the family plan is 33.90. That amounts to 215 and 407 francs per year, respectively. Those who subscribed via Apple pay even more, as Apple takes its cut as well. These are figures that raise eyebrows for many in our Canton, especially for those who use YouTube to listen to music in the background while doing other things.
On iPhone, there is a free application that covers most of those functions. It is called Video Lite and has over 6,400 ratings on the Swiss App Store with an average of 4.8 stars. The latest update was released just yesterday, which says a lot about how closely the project is maintained.
In practice, it works like a browser dedicated to videos. You download it, open it, and access content from YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, and Rumble without logging into any account. From there, you get the three things most people pay for the subscription for: videos without ad interruptions, background playback with the screen off, and the small picture-in-picture window that stays on top of other applications. There is also a sleep timer for those who fall asleep to a documentary and the ability to cast to a compatible TV.
Before rushing to download it, three things must be said honestly.
The first is that without an account, you don't have your account. No subscriptions to the channels you follow, no history, no saved playlists, no comments. You start from scratch and search manually every time. For those who listen to two or three specific channels, this is irrelevant; for those who follow forty, it is a serious problem.
The second is that the application is free but displays its own advertisements within the app, not inside the videos. Those who use it every day can remove them with a purchase of 99 cents per month or 1.99 for three months. These figures remain far below the 17.90 francs, which explains the app's success.
I’ll take this opportunity for a reminder that applies well beyond this application. Every purchase made inside an app ends up in the iPhone subscription list, and even those forgotten years ago remain active there. They can be checked in thirty seconds: Settings, your name at the top, then Subscriptions. Do it tonight, because nine times out of ten, you will find something you are still paying for without using it.
The third is the most important and concerns reliability. YouTube constantly changes how its platform works, and every change breaks something in these applications. The reviews tell the story well: features disappearing, rewinding without audio, the advanced player that never returned. They get fixed, but anyone looking for a tool that always works the same way needs to know this in advance. It should be added that the app is rated for adults because it allows unrestricted web access, so it is not the right choice to put on a child's phone.
One question remains that deserves a sincere, not technical, answer. Anyone who skips advertisements takes revenue away from those who produce the videos. If you consistently follow three or four Swiss or Ticino channels, those creators live partly off the ads you are avoiding. The official subscription, besides removing ads, distributes a portion of the money to the creators you actually watch. It is a consideration worth making once, calmly, before deciding.
My practical advice is to try the application for the use case where the difference is immediately felt, such as listening to a lecture or music with the screen off while walking or driving—something the free official app continues to prevent. If after a month you use it every day, you have two honest paths ahead: pay the 99 cents to the developer, or switch to the official subscription to regain your account, offline downloads, and a clear conscience.
On Android, the situation is different, as applications of this type are not allowed on the Play Store and must be installed outside official channels. There, the advice is to forget about it. Installing programs from external sources on a phone that contains TWINT, e-banking, and email is a risk that isn't worth a skipped ad.