[16] During its invite-only beta, Music Key faced mixed reception due to the limited scope of the offering; YouTube's chief business officer Robert Kyncl explained that his daughter was confused over why videos of songs from Frozen were not "music" in the scope of the service, and thus not advertisement-free.

The existing pricing, as well as bundling of YouTube Premium with Google Play Music, was grandfathered in some countries for those who subscribed prior to the rebranding.

Alongside the rebranding, the service also expanded into Canada, and 11 European countries (Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom).

[23] The rebranding also came amid internal concerns that the previous "YouTube Red" name could be confused with internet pornography website RedTube.

Through the apps, users can also save videos to their device for offline viewing, play their audio in the background, and in picture-in-picture mode on Android Oreo and newer.

YouTube releasing experimental features as well to subscribers was a benefit to Nield, which as of writing included the rollout of pinch to zoom in videos.

[41] Ashley Maready of The Motley Fool concurred with Nield in her review, while additionally noting that the benefits also extend out to YouTube Kids.

Additionally, Sharma strongly criticized the manner in which YouTube nagged its viewers to subscribe to Premium and claimed that its attempts have driven users to competitor TikTok.

In a statement to the Financial Times in June 2014, Robert Kyncl confirmed that these measures were "to ensure that all content on the platform is governed by its new contractual terms".

Stating that 90% of labels had reached deals, he went on to say that "while we wish that we had [a] 100% success rate, we understand that is not likely an achievable goal and therefore it is our responsibility to our users and the industry to launch the enhanced music experience".

[47][48][49][50] The Financial Times later reported that YouTube had reached an aggregate deal with Merlin Network—a trade group representing over 20,000 independent labels, for their inclusion in the service.

[52] Similarly, a large amount of content licensed by Japanese record labels became unavailable in regions where YouTube Red is available.

[56] Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Google indefinitely suspended all of its all payment and subscription-based services in the country, including YouTube Premium.