As a YouTube Premium subscriber, this is the only new feature I want

Many moons in the past, Google rolled out YouTube Premium household plans and hooked me. My husband and I checked out that subscription’s pricing, briefly weighed the professionals and cons of paying for a “free” service, and rapidly determined that it was a million instances price it only for the ad-free expertise.

Over the years, with Google worsening its ad-riddled expertise on the free YouTube tier, I’ve thanked my fortunate stars for my Premium subscription. However whereas Google retains including and testing ineffective and typically even anti-user measures on the platform, I discover myself sighing in frustration each time I test the app as a result of I simply want one new feature. One. That’s it. Subscription folders.

Hear me out, Google. I love YouTube. As a matter of reality, I find it irresistible a lot that I’ve paid for it for years and use it day by day on my cellphone, my pc, and my Google TV Streamer. It’s the streaming subscription I use the most and the platform the place I watch the most stuff — far more than my Plex server, Amazon Prime Video, or Canal Plus (native French cable for dwell sports activities).

YouTube is a part of my day by day work, but in addition my most attention-grabbing leisure. Tech, stand-up comedy, music, sports activities, meals, journey, inside design, and an increasing number of. I can go from watching a new Android Authority video to catching up on the abstract of Actual Madrid’s final recreation to listening to a man clarify to me why popcorn ceilings make homes look dated (despite the fact that I don’t have popcorn ceilings) to binging a few Taskmaster movies (that present is so hilariously pointless!) to planning my subsequent journey to Budapest to laughing at Gianmarco Soresi’s newest crowd work in a single sitting. I love this randomness and selection — typically.

Different instances, I simply want to dig into one subject. Only one style of video. Perhaps a new Pixel 9a simply launched and I want to see what all the tech reviewers are saying about it. Perhaps I’m simply in the temper for stand-up comedy. Or perhaps I’m catching up on all the Eurovision nationwide finals and new track releases. I simply want these movies, however the downside is that I can’t merely filter them.

As a result of I watch so many eclectic and completely different genres of movies, my subscriptions are a huge mess. The alphabetical order is pointless for me. There’s no logic in going from Android Authority to Andy Cooks, to the Australian Open, to Britain’s Received Expertise. Or from Jelle’s Marble Runs to JerryRigEverything, then Jimmy Carr and Jolly. These are worlds aside. I can’t even think about what a mess my subscription checklist could be if I used YouTube Music, however I’ve fortunately caught with Spotify for a lot of causes — considered one of them being the capability to maintain my music pursuits separate from my YouTube video pursuits. No alphabetical order may save the horror present if I did, although.

I’ve additionally tried the “New exercise” and “Most related” sorting strategies on the Android app, however these don’t work for me both. And let’s not speak about YouTube on TVs! That’s the largest display I watch on, the one I spend the most hours in entrance of, and Google has determined that subscription sorting there is… “no matter goes.” I suppose it’s trying to kind my channels by relevance, however oh, the instances I’ve missed some cool movies for days or even weeks as a result of the algorithm didn’t floor them or the channel was buried a million layers deep…

I simply want folders. Or tags. Or some kind — any kind — of guide group that doesn’t depend on the algorithm overlords. My mind loves group and categorization; that’s the way it works, that’s the way it’s all the time labored in relation to tech. I by no means had a pile of icons on my Home windows desktop; I all the time had neat folders with every little thing precisely the place it must be. Perhaps that’s my age talking, however I grew up in the golden age of computer systems the place file browsers, folders, and sorting strategies had been king, and we didn’t depend on some random machine someplace to determine for us and shove its selection down our collective throats. I love that degree of management, and I want it in my YouTube app.

So, Google, please pay attention. I’ve indulged your push for Shorts, your like/dislike modifications, your random format experiments, your foolish banners to inform me about Members-only movies (no, thanks), and your fixed gesture modifications (am I swiping up or all the way down to fullscreen?). I’ve gone via all of them and nonetheless saved paying for YouTube. So, please, Google, simply indulge the heavy customers like me, those that have a whole bunch of subscriptions and simply as many diversified pursuits, those that spend hours in your platform and hold your consumer metrics excessive, those that know what they want to look at and aren’t counting on no matter pops up first on the residence web page. Simply add folders. Okay? That’s it. No newfangled AI feature, no Gemini integration, nothing fancy. Simply folders, like Xerox had in 1981 earlier than I was even born. Alright? Thanks.