YouTube TV Will Cancel Apple App Store Subscriptions In March

If you're a YouTube TV customer who signed up for the service through Apple's App Store, you'll need to sign up for the service again next month after the company discontinues these subscriptions. YouTube is alerting its customers to the change via email, advising them that it will no longer support App Store subscriptions in March. Nothing about the service itself is changing, however.

YouTube TV customers who signed up for the service using Apple's in-app purchases have received an email from YouTube warning them that this payment method will not be accepted starting on March 13. The app itself will remain available on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, of course; you'll just need to update with a different payment method.

This change means customers will be billed through Apple's in-app purchases one final time before the payment method is no longer accepted. The subscription will be automatically canceled on the next billing date after March 13, according to YouTube, meaning you'll need to sign back up with a different payment method. YouTube hasn't revealed why it made this change.

The going assumption is that YouTube has made this decision in order to avoid losing the 30-percent cut Apple takes from subscription fees during the first year of the subscription. Assuming that's the case, YouTube won't be the first company to discontinue Apple App Store subscriptions in order to avoid the fee.

Netflix made a similar decision in late 2018, removing Apple from the subscription equation. Apple's cut of the pie has remained controversial for years, with some companies choosing to raise their costs in order to offset the fee and others, like Netflix, choosing to ditch the subscriptions entirely.