YouTube Go to Shut Down in August 2022: What went Wrong?

YouTube Go app will, unfortunately, shut down in August as officially confirmed by Google via a post on their support page. Through the post, Google recommended that all YouTube Go users should switch to the main YouTube app as soon as possible.

YouTube Go app released in 2016 has been a very useful application for users who uses low-end devices and does not have enough storage space on their device, or who plans to use less data for streaming. The Go version had cool features but lacked what YouTube's main app had such as commenting, creating content, or even accessing dark mode.

According to the post shared by Google, they said the main YouTube app has been optimized over the years to support low-end devices, improve its performance on such devices and also try to optimize video quality to reduce the issue of slow network connections. They also promised to reduce the data usage for users that have limited data.

Due to these above-mentioned improvements and planned updates of the main YouTube app, the Go version does not seem to have much use anymore, this was even evident knowing that the app has not been updated since October 2021, despite having over 500 million installs on Google Play store alone.

The YouTube app has been getting regular new updates such as the recently released Super Thanks which allows content creators to receive tips from users watching their videos. With this, content creators do not have to rely so much on adverts. Further update targetted at content creators includes the new dedicated Podcasts homepage, which is speculated to bring audio-only ads to the platform.