TL;DR: YouTube has announced a more affordable tier of its Premium subscription service for U.S. users. Dubbed Premium Lite, this new option offers an ad-free viewing experience for most videos while removing several features. Subscribers will lose access to background play, offline downloads, and ad-free music and music videos, but in exchange, they'll pay a lower monthly rate. Premium Lite members will be able to enjoy most videos on YouTube ad-free, with the exception of music and music videos. Lite also does away with downloads and background play. The biggest difference, of course, is in the price.A standard Premium subscription with all the bells and whistles commands $13.99 per month following a 17 percent price hike in the summer of 2023. Premium Lite, however, will set you back just $7.99 a month.While convenient in certain situations, features like background play and offline downloads don't appeal to everyone. If you simply want an ad-free experience while watching traditional YouTube videos without all the fluff, Premium Lite certainly fits the bill.At a time when subscription rate hikes are commonplace, it's refreshing when cheaper alternatives emerge. Again, perks can be nice to have at times, but some would argue that they've gotten a bit out of hand.Imagine if Amazon suddenly launched a new Prime tier that only offered shipping benefits but at a fraction of the cost of its current membership. How many people actually use everyone Amazon offers with Prime? If a new Prime tier with only delivery benefits launched, it'd no doubt be a hit.The new tier comes less than a month after YouTube revealed that TV screens have overtaken mobile as the primary device for viewing content in the US. Features like Premium that eliminate advertising from the equation only help to make the living room takeover more seamless and natural.YouTube Prime Lite is rolling out now in the US as a pilot and will be available to everyone in existing pilot countries Australia, Germany, and Thailand in the coming weeks. If you don't yet see it, keep checking back.