YouTube Go is dead, and you can probably blame YouTube Premium

Enlarge (credit: YouTube)

YouTube Go is probably not an app that many of our US readers are familiar with, given its singular focus on the developing world, but it scored more than 500 million downloads in its six years of existence. It's also dead. YouTube recently announced the app will be shutting down this August.

YouTube Go was the herald for Google's "next billion users" plan in 2016. When you're as big as Google and count "most Internet users" as your customer base, the best way to chase growth is to get more people on the Internet. The result was several "Go"-branded products, which targeted low-end devices with limited Internet access. One of the biggest developing markets was India.

With YouTube Go shutting down, YouTube cites improvements in the main YouTube app as the primary reason. The company says the main app has seen "improved performance for entry-level devices or those that watch YouTube on slower networks." YouTube says the main app also has "a better overall user experience [and] offers features that aren’t available on YouTube Go that many have asked for—such as the ability to comment, post, create content, and use dark theme."