YouTube wants to give you reasons to pay for Premium. One of them is to restrict 4K playback

In the middle of last month we learned that YouTube had started showing up to ten ads per video to some users. The alternative to avoid this? Subscribe to YouTube Premium. Coming soon, however, you might also have to pay to enjoy the content in its highest quality.

How MacRumors collectssome Reddit and Twitter users (1, two, 3) have noticed that Google’s video platform has asked them to subscribe to YouTube Premium to enable 4K (2160p) playback, a feature that since its introduction has been available to everyone without any limitations.

A way to attract more users to YouTube Premium?

At the moment it is not clear if it is a test that the company is doing with a few users or a deployment in some countries. In any case, a movement of this type could respond to a company strategy to increase your paying user basewhich is behind the competition.

YouTube is so desperate pic.twitter.com/vACFz5i6r8

— FriendlyAaron (@FriendlyAaron1) September 30, 2022

YouTube reached 50 million paying users in the second quarter of this year. This amount may seem enormous, but if we compare it with some of its competitors in the same period, we discover that the difference between them is greater. Let’s see.

Netflix, which is experiencing one of the worst moments in its history, had 220.7 million “paying households”, although it estimated that more than 100 million of them use shared passwords. Spotify, which has seen a recent slowdown in subscribers, ended the second quarter of this year with 188 million paying users.

YouTube currently offers two types of subscriptions. On the one hand, we have YouTube Premium Lite, which for 6.99 euros per month allows you to remove ads. On the other hand, we have YouTube Premium, which for 11.99 euros per month offers the advantages of the Lite plan plus downloads on the device, playback in the background and Music Premium.

By adding 4K playback to its existing subscription benefits, YouTube could drive more users to pay for its service. However, it should be noted, no statement has been issued in this regard. For our part we have written to YouTube and will update this article if we receive a response.

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