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Two months ago, Sundar Pichai announced a caller epoch of belt-tightening astatine Google, starring to the shutdown of the Pixel laptop hardware team, a culling of fractional of the experimental projects astatine Area 120, a spinoff of Project Loon's technology, and the death of Google Stadia. Next up for the icy manus of Google's fund section mightiness beryllium YouTube. MacRumors reports that YouTube is experimenting with paywalling 4K video solution for videos, making it exclusive to subscribers of YouTube Premium.
Reports of this experimentation hitting immoderate users person been popping up for the past month. When selecting a resolution, each enactment is disposable but for "2160p" (4K), which has a small "Premium" tag adjacent to it. That volition beryllium $11.99 a period if you privation to entree videos successful the highest resolution. Google's precocious killed game-streaming service, Stadia, had a akin billing setup, wherever 4K was a premium add-on.
So, aft investigating up to 12 ads connected YouTube for non-Premium users, present immoderate users reported that they besides person to get a Premium relationship conscionable to ticker videos successful 4K. pic.twitter.com/jJodoAxeDp
— Alvin (@sondesix) October 1, 2022
This isn't the lone YouTube revenue-boosting experimentation Google has tried lately. Last month, immoderate users saw arsenic galore arsenic 10 unskippable ads earlier a video. Criticism was strong, and Google aboriginal called the move an "experiment" that it "concluded," which seemingly means it's not happening. We could spot thing akin hap to the thought of paywalling the 4K resolution, depending connected however the reception goes. We asked Google PR for comment, but the institution said it has thing to stock close now.
YouTube's Twitter account precocious confirmed the experimentation and suggested leaving feedback astir the change.
