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YouTube Premium now lets you earn badges

For some reason, YouTube now lets Premium subscribers earn badges that are based on usage. There does not appear to be any benefits to collecting them. 

I first noticed this addition when a card in the Home feed congratulated me: “Congrats on your new badge!”

This opened a fullscreen page (with a chromatic background) detailing the award. All the badges are animated and generally amusing. You can see all your badges on the Your Premium benefits page, which is also accessible from the account menu on mobile,  with a new carousel.

YouTube says you can “Earn badges for reaching milestones and enjoying your favorite Premium features.” These include:

  • Team Premium 
  • Trailblazer: “…you joined Premium within its first 2 years of launching.” 
  • Enthusiast
  • 10 million club: “Congrats on starting the trend and being one of the first 10 million members!”
  • Backup planner
  • Worry-free watcher
  • Constant connector
  • Gold listener:
  • Platinum listener
  • Multi-platinum listener: 100 listening hours in YouTube Music 
  • Spot saver
  • Continuity champ
  • Pickup pro
  • Task juggler
  • Optimizer
  • Efficiency expert: 30 hours of picture-in-picture
  • Backstage pass
  • VIP list
  • All access 

This is actually a good way to educate people on what features YouTube Premium offers. That being said, there should really be a bigger incentive system than just badges. YouTube Premium recently started rewarding subscribers with perks like three months of PC Game Pass, Discord Nitro, 90 days of Walmart+, and four months of Calm Premium. Tying the badge system to that could be interesting. 

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Avatar for Abner Li Abner Li

Editor-in-chief. Interested in the minutiae of Google and Alphabet. Tips/talk: abner@9to5g.com