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YouTube may make watching videos in 4K quality on the platform exclusive to only YouTube Premium subscribers, according to screenshots posted by users on Twitter and Reddit.

General-YouTube-Feature-1.jpg

On Reddit (1,2) and Twitter, some users have started to recently notice that on iOS, and presumably across other platforms also, YouTube is now saying that in order to watch videos in 4K, the user must be a paying YouTube Premium subscriber. Not all users are seeing the 4K quality option blocked behind YouTube's paywall, and it's unclear if YouTube plans to move forward with this.

A standard YouTube Premium plan costs $11.99 in the United States and includes ad-free videos, background playback, and the ability to download videos for offline viewing. We've reached out to YouTube for comment on 4K video quality possibly becoming a YouTube Premium feature and we'll update this article if we hear back.

Article Link: You May Soon Need to Be a YouTube Premium Subscriber to Watch 4K Videos
Honestly flabbergasted at the entitlement people have over free services. Yeah it’s a Google company but it still needs to make money. They are in the business of making money. Haven’t seen a service like this being subsidized by the government to where they are required to serve you anything for free lmao.
 
Honestly flabbergasted at the entitlement people have over free services. Yeah it’s a Google company but it still needs to make money. They are in the business of making money. Haven’t seen a service like this being subsidized by the government to where they are required to serve you anything for free lmao.
Yes, but the unethical Google/Alphabet already makes money from selling your data for advertising and more nefarious purposes. Now if they would not harvest and sell this information when you subscribe to their services, then perhaps it might be OK for them to ask money to cover their costs.
But they don't. So they are double dipping b*****s and thus this is unethical as can be!
 
I am Premium subscriber, mainly to remove ads, and I do listen to Music now and again, but I'd be happy to drop that feature. I watch YouTube every day so I'm not too bothered about being a subscriber, but I think the existing single-user price of £11.99 but for a family plan or, say, £5 for a single user without Music, would be more suitable. Premium Lite sounds promising.

Having said that, don't tell YouTube, but I watch so much on there, to entertain and educate me, that I'd probably pay even more if YouTube wasn't free. For me, a significant portion of my online life is YouTube. Where else am I going to get a 2-hour history lecture, or music to sleep or read to, or a 3D tour of the physics of an inkjet printer, or the latest music videos and movie trailers, all in one place? :)
 
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YouTube may make watching videos in 4K quality on the platform exclusive to only YouTube Premium subscribers, according to screenshots posted by users on Twitter and Reddit.
Dumbest move ever, you would loose a lot of ad revenue. How about decoupling Google Music from You Tube premium and offer that at a discount?
 
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Standard pattern for nearly every platform: attract users cheaply/free to build revenue from advertisers (while you also sell marketing data?), increase advertiser fees, increase ads for users then start to squeeze users for "pro" features on the other side, maybe withdraw standard features. Entrenched users may complain, but without a viable alternative (in this case, YouTube has no real competition), and pain in switching, users shrug and pay/stay.
 
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I understand the rationale for why they'd do this, but as a creator who makes 4k content it's a real bummer. This would cause me to subscribe to Vimeo instead so that people who watch my content can see it as intended without having to pay money. Which would be a bummer, because I like everything else about the YouTube platform.
 
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I understand the rationale for why they'd do this, but as a creator who makes 4k content it's a real bummer. This would cause me to subscribe to Vimeo instead so that people who watch my content can see it as intended without having to pay money. Which would be a bummer, because I like everything else about the YouTube platform.
I would suggest asking how many of your subs actually choose 4K as an option.
 
For the huge amount of mobile, including tablet users, this is meaningless. Only if you watch YT on a “TV” (how to call the TV nowadays???).
I am a paying users and most the new content is not on 4K, it is very time consuming to edit/process 4K, most YouTubers upload at 1080p or 2K, but 4K?, only a handful most of which I don’t follow. In the end, I don’t care :)
 
Content creators need to start asking their subscribers if they watch their videos in 4K or not.

It’s time for Creators to actually start listening to their fan base instead of being focused on ”being ahead of the curve“

I never consented to MKBHD to upload 4K or 8K, but yet he did to be “the first“ “the game changer“. I guarantee less than 10% of subs actually watch at 4K or 8K.
 
The issue here will be that content makers won’t bother delivering 4k if so few people will actually see it.

I suppose the question is now whether YT care about not having new content delivered at lower resolutions and how does that effect their long term ambitions.

4k content means that content be viable for the next few decades. 480p content looks terrible. More and more people are watching YT on their tv’s and is replacing their main entertainment system. Just seems odd that YT will be discouraging content creators from delivering the best content they can. What company does that?

On another note YT needs a competitor. Not sure why Netflix doesn’t offer ad supported uploads in addition to its content. It’s in a prime position to battle YT. It’s on practically every new TV remote in the world. Plus, it needs to spend less making content. Why not just go after YT creators and cut them a cheque?
 
Years from now, YouTube will say that they're not getting enough revenue from ads because too many people are subscribed to Premium, so they'll start introducing ads into YouTube Premium. But you can opt out of ads by upgrading to YouTube Premium Pro.
This is what I’m worried about.
 
YouScrewed is doing what most paid steaming services do. If you want to stream 4K you have to pay more. Cable companies did this with HD when it became popular, and continued to do it. It sucks. But since YouScrewed offers a free with commercials version, it really sucks. After all, we already have to sit through way too many awkwardly placed ads, now they want bribe money to give us 4K. If you use an ATV you won't get good 4K through YouScrewed anyway. I won't pay for it. I will just watch the HD versions. After all, I don't watch feature films on YouScrewed, just stuff created by amateurs, and a lot of the so-called 4k those idiots post isn't true 4K anyway. YouScrewed is just a garbage company with mostly garbage for content, I'll never pay for that!
 
I probably watch more YouTube then any streaming service, refuse to use the crap that is TikTak. $12 bucks is more then worth it to avoid the ad's! Plus you get youtube music for free with it, not the best music streaming service but essentially free is hard to argue with.
 
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