• A few weeks ago users spotted a prompt to upgrade to YouTube Premium to access 4K content.
• YouTube has since confirmed that this is part of an experiment to see which features users prefer.
• While YouTube ads generate $7.3 billion in revenue for Alphabet, this is the lowest ad revenue generator for Alphabet.

There is no such thing as a free lunch and soon, no content in 4K resolution on YouTube without a Premium subscription.

That’s right, a few weeks ago posts on Reddit appeared highlighting that YouTube was asking some users to take up a YouTube Premium subscription to watch content in 4K.

When quizzed by a user, YouTube responded saying it was an experiment to determine which features Premium and non-Premium users prefer.

https://twitter.com/TeamYouTube/status/1576628685746196482

While YouTube did link to a “Send feedback” page, that page is for sending feedback about a technical issue with the website or app. This essentially means that unless you’re being blocked off from watching content in 4K you won’t be able to provide feedback.

Not that YouTube needs a specific feedback page because users are not, pleased with this change experiment or otherwise.

“This is insane and a ridiculous move by YouTube. I hope their platform gets some competition,” wrote a Reddit user.

“Did y’all get people at Twitch working for you now?” a user posted on Twitter.

Recently, YouTube announced an expansion of its YouTube Partner Program (YPP). The platform will soon launched a new level of the YPP with lower requirements. Importantly, being part of the YPP grants you the ability to monetise your content. While it’s not clear if this new lower level YPP will have monetisation options, YouTube clearly needs to get more money out of users.

Of course it could be argued that YouTube generates a boat-load of money through advertising alone. In the second quarter of this year, Alphabet reported [pdf] that YouTube ads alone had generated $7.3 billion in revenue. With that having been said, YouTube ads are Alphabet’s lowest revenue generator when it comes to Google advertising, so eyeing more Premium subscriptions makes sense especially with the bandwidth consumption of 4K content.

However, it’s clear that users don’t like the idea of 4K content being locked behind a subscription. While users have threatened to leave the platform, there aren’t many websites that do what YouTube does and do it well.

Here’s hoping the backlash over the last few days and weeks is enough to get this experiment canned.