You might be paying more for YouTube Premium if you subscribed through Apple

Some people prefer to bill their subscriptions through Apple's App Store because of how predatory first-party billing can be. Once you give some companies your credit card information, it can be nearly impossible to get them out of your pocket. After digging around in settings menus to find the "cancel subscription" button, which appears deliberately hidden like Waldo, you're made to go through three confirmation screens, presented with a special, one-time-only discount offer, and then made to fill out a survey explaining why you want to cancel. And that's if you're lucky. Some subscriptions from smaller outfits will make you send an email, or you might resort to replacing your credit card in order to stop the subscription from being charged.

There may be situations where paying an Apple tax on your subscriptions is worth a few extra dollars for the peace of mind that comes with the ability to cancel them in just a few taps on your smartphone. Apple would love to keep collecting its fees from your subscription, but the company also wants you to enjoy using your iPhone and is therefore not as straightforwardly incentivized to act like a gremlin with your credit card.

Even so, it's worth saving money where you can. Thankfully, YouTube Premium makes it reasonably easy to cut off a subscription on its own billing platform. Canceling is a relatively straightforward process, and Google won't give you much guff about your decision to stop giving it money. If you're currently overpaying for YouTube Premium through the App Store, or if you've been considering signing up for the service, you're better off doing so away from the tax collector at Apple's walled garden gates.