Google Considers Subscription-Based YouTube Offering

[engine]

Google is mulling over the idea of a subscription-based version of YouTube, whilst retaining the free, ad-based version for those that choose it.

A paid, ad-free subscription version of YouTube, in addition to the existing ad-supported offering, would give users more choice and work well in a world where viewers are increasingly watching videos through apps on mobile devices, Ms. Wojcicki said during the Code Mobile conference in Half Moon Bay, Calif., late Monday.

“It’s near term,” Ms. Wojcicki said. “There are going to be cases where people are going to say, ‘I don’t want to see the ads.’”Google Considers Subscription-Based YouTube Offering [online.wsj.com]

Can a paid, subscription-based model work when you're watching cat videos? I'm not so sure, however, I can see the idea of an ad-free version being interesting.

[Swanny007]

I am so used to the ads now that I'd rather have ads and not pay to access YouTube. Now, if they were to make the ads more obnoxious (i.e. can't skip them) then I might think otherwise.

[lucy24]

i.e. can't skip them

They do that already with ads below a certain length. (Is it 15 seconds? I swear some of them feel like several hours.) Since I live in California and there's an election* coming up, that means I periodically have to race for the iPad's volume control ;)


* Yes, of course it's useful to know the ads exist, since Avoid The Money is a convenient voting strategy, but if I didn't listen to it the first time I'm not going to listen to the eleventh time am I?

[superclown2]

So the difference between viewing someone else's copyrighted work via a torrent site and YouTube will be that Google/YouTube charges, and the torrent site doesn't.