Oddly enough, the "lite" subscription was introduced in some other countries during the time they shut it off in the launch countries.

I wonder if they're testing willingness to spend using the cheaper sub, then pulling it if it turns out people are likely to buy the pricier plan once the lower tier isn't available anymore?

Nebula can only afford to do that because basically nobody who subs to nebula actually watches the videos on it. They did a video about their revenue model and people treat it as a way to support the creators, not to actually watch content

Nebula is pretty awesome and the type of content is great. I miss some light entertainment content though, so the network effect is at work. Still, nebula is the only streaming platform I'd consider subscribing as their policy is great and they do provide good value.

Meh I had nebula a couple years ago and it had some missing features and fairly poor depth of content. The same few bits constantly being pushed. I'm hopeful it improves but I wasn't using it.

And who will pay for those?

I agree, but they'd get a large number of users to subscribe.

And then maybe they wouldn't complain when they raised the price to $3. And a few months later maybe $3.50. Then $5.

A few years ago, people wouldn't have paid over $15 for a standard Netflix tier without 4K. But the way to boil a frog is to make them nice and comfy in lukewarm water, then keep increasing the temperature slowly... So even if they lose money, maybe a low price for the ad-free YouTube could make sense, from a business perspective.

Plus, no way would it ever stay at that price. Nothing ever does. The only service I pay for now is spotting, and that's just to have ad-free music on my half-hour drive to work.

Linus Tech Tips did a nice video on that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDsJJRNXjYI

But it should not be done by LTT, but by Google.