YouTube sees a future where only paid clients will watch videos in high resolution
Users unmask YouTube's potential plans for including high-res videos as part of its premium offering
During the weekend, Twitter and Reddit were flooded with questions on YouTube’s newest feature that asks its users to upgrade to premium accounts if they wish to watch videos in 4K (currently free of charge for all).
This wasn’t the case for all users, which makes us believe that it could’ve been a test run to observe select users’ reactions before switching to 4K as a premium feature permanently.
One of the viewers confronted YouTube’s customer desk with a question about the ‘changed feature’ and received a reply that they might have been a part of the company’s ‘experiment’.
YouTube is a service whose users are accustomed to free usage, therefore the company has experienced troubles converting all of its massive user base into cash. Historically, it has attempted to use a row of different strategies to force its viewers into subscribing for premium. One of these stunts includes adding 11 unskippable ads before a longer video.
Google, owner of YouTube, claimed that the video streaming service surpassed 50 million subscribers last year.
