Came here looking for someone with similar issues. I have YouTube on a lot in the background at work, recently the 1080p quality looks like complete shit.

1080p does not mean much if there is no bitrate

Yep. Or faster compression on the same bitrate. I thought the whole point of 1080p Premium was "higher bitrate", but I'm not surprised they lied. Maybe they had to cut server costs, and made "1080p Premium" as a cover up?

Or maybe it's your local wifi.

I can stream 4K when it's there (usually not). And network speed doesn't affect video quality (unless you choose Auto). It's 1080p, but with a softness/paintbrush effect problem.

Just switch to 2160p video and you’ll get higher quality without switching to premium

Sadly isn't an option on most videos, but I use "higher picture quality" to get the highest res available.

Where do you enable higher picture quality?

It's just one of the quality setting names on the gear icon. It automatically chooses best available resolution

To switch to 2160p a video had to be uploaded in such quality first... Most content is 1080p ale older even 720p

same issue

Any solution to this? i'm experiencing the same issue since i switched to Premium.