Today, YouTube announced a premium subscription service that will allow American users to pay a fee — $US10/month — to watch videos without ads.
They have titled it YouTube Red — which may remind people of a certain not-safe-for-work website with a similar name — and they say the service will launch this month across the United States. In addition to stripping out ads, the service will also let people save videos to play offline on their phones. YouTube also says they plan to launch a series of shows that are exclusive to this service, featuring the likes of PewDiePie and other big video stars. (More info here.) Hopefully if it goes well it will make its way to Australia soon.
If you’re signing up, please do remember that it’s called YouTube Red and not Red Tube. Wouldn’t want to get… confused.
Comments
53 responses to “YouTube Is Getting Paid Subscriptions”
Goodluck… those other ideas aren’t even that great and for ads you just use adblock or some such extension.
I know of a great way to remove youtube ads for $0/Month. It’s called Adblock Plus
Yep this. I’m surprised that most people I mention to this to have never realised it.
Except that ABP doesn’t block youtube ads… at least not any more.
I know it doesn’t in Chrome, this was reported recently.
Maybe try using Firefox, that’s where I do my YouTube viewing and I can’t remember the last time I saw an ad.
I can’t believe people are still using internet/youtube without adblock, this really blow my mind
I’ve never seen an ad on internet since, I don’t know, YEARS and I’am not kidding, this youtube paying thing is making me laugh so hard right now I can’t even begin to understand who would like to pay for watching some kind of exclusive video made by a bunch of guy that are famous on youtube. This is ridiculous and the name haha, come on Google ! Nice try but it’s not going to happen.
The one person I talked to about this is pretty excited about it. Since he already pays for Google all access music he’s also stoked that he’ll be getting this as well. If you’re already paying for one, it’s just a bonus.
Er, ads are still being blocked on Chrome just fine. Even after the latest updates, it’s still fine. I use both Adblock Plus and the standard Adblock because there seems to be some differences in their lists.
As of yesterday, ads have still been blocked on youtube for me. Strange.
What do you mean? Always been working for me even until now. Never seen any ads on my Chrome. You sure you have the correct list installed for the adblock filter?
Works fine in Firefox for me at blocking all YouTube ads.
I can’t see people paying to watch people like Pewdiepie… I like watching his game videos, but I’m sure as hell not going to pay to watch him play.
$10 a month seems a little steap. Who does YouTube think it is, Netflix or something??
That’s basically the intention. YouTube wants traditional content makers to stop pulling content off the site via DMCA and encourage them to upload TV shows, movies and albums under subscription channels instead. It’s also to try to create more reliable income streams for high budget content creators like independent series and documentaries (Tabletop could be an example, or the Street Fighter fan series).
Same price as Google All Access music. Which is included in the price. So you get both when you pay for one.
It didn’t remind me. It does now! Can never unsee/hear. 😛
Hahah they add the ads so they can get more money, and now they’re charging to remove the ads. I guess they think everyone is stupid.
This is how provision of service works… They provide a service for a monetary incentive. I’m not sure what your issue is here.
hey I would pay if it had proper content,,,,,,, alas it only has amateur videos!
Would have to do a lot to make it worth $10…and if it comes to Aus with a US $10 price tag then it’ll be more like $15 for us.
Netflix isn’t even worth it here yet, YouTube will have to do a lot with their exclusive content to justify the price tag. PewDiePie videos do not even come close, never subbed to that guy and never will.
Checkout my subscription to RedTube
Seriously, how did this not occur to the people naming this service.
It’d definitely be top 3 ‘Worst’ names to choose for the service, that’s actually pretty impressive.
yeah i don’t see this working. they have been free since 06 and people wont want to pay for youtube… as for ads who honestly isn’t running an adblocker these days?
Eh. I’ve got AdBlock and a program called 4K Video Downloader.
Vessel.com is only $2.99/month. A lot of the big name YouTubers exclusively release their videos on Vessel first. Then Youtube a week or so later.
Plus, Vessel pay their content providers more.
Almost 12 months ago Vessel allowed people to sign up for free for 12 months. No CC details. No catches.
Now that 12 months is nearing an end YouTube is joining the subscription band wagon.
And like someone else said, Netflix is $10/month for high quality movie and TV content.
Youtube want to charge the same? Ha! No!
Vessel is awesome. I was a bit skeptical at first when I got my free 12 month sub thanks to LinusTechTips earlier this, but now I find it’s a far superior service, and yeah no ads, along with a nice clean layout.
If YouTube want their version to flourish they need to offer some kind of serious incentive, like the earlier releases or subscription only content from creators or some shit.
Hilarious plot twist – if you accidentally used Redtube you don’t have pre-video ads, so you don’t need a subscription… Ahem… or, you know… So I’ve heard
It’s a really backwards world we live in where a normal website has a subscription charge, but a pornography site doesn’t.
Isn’t RedTube essentially just a pirate site? I imagine there is a way to make money off putting videos on it by allowing advertising with sponsored videos or something, but I doubt the random porn people upload really costs RedTube anything outside the usual operating costs which are covered by ad banner revenue.
I’m guessing if YouTube sold ad space the same way and didn’t allow most of their content creators to make money on their videos they’d be a lot more profitable.
Personally I don’t think this is such a terrible idea. I could use an ad blocking extension but the stuff I watch on YouTube isn’t produced by some faceless entity that exists purely to make money. I feel a lot less comfortable ripping them off than I would if I were to pirate a TV show. A way to support them without sitting through the same three ads that YouTube has decided I’m most likely to respond to over and over would be nice. I’m not sure this system is any good but an alternative to ads certainly is.
This is entirely too serious a response to such a tongue-in-cheek post.
Just give me a moment to process this.
I… I need to sit down for a moment….
half the people on this forum or coming off as extremely entitled. You do realise the content is free if you wish it to be? The fact that most of you use ad blockers means that your favourite streams don’t get paid, therefore can’t release as much content. if you don’t want it then don’t get it, simple. Time to get off your high horses people.
Couldn’t agree with you more. As someone who used to rely on revenue from ads just to pay the hosting bills, it used to anger me to no end hearing people (users of my very own website mind you) gloat about their use of ad blockers. It was both comedic and tragic in the irony and stupidity of their decision to actively deny the very income that pays the bills for the service they enjoyed. Granted, I’m no Google, but I just find the principle of ad blocking and the level of entitlement being exhibited here as bewildering.
I’ve whitelisted a few sites that don’t have obnoxious ads purely because of this. They produce content that I value, so I help them pay their bills.
I wonder how many users would generate $10 worth of ad revenue a month?
So $10/month to remove ads from YouTube.
How far would my $10/month go on Red Tube? I need to understand the value proposition before making my decision.
Youtube doesn’t have Debbie Does Dallas?
Yeah, but Red Tube doesn’t have cat videos.
Or, if it does, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to watch them.
Good point.
Damn good point.
lol.
I think you are all missing the point of what is happening here, it wont be paying 10 bucks to remove adds so you can watch cat videos in peace, it will be adding premium content, think of it as another Netflicks, but it will also include first watch on premiere content/ trailers, interviews etc.
As far as im concerned the more avenues for content to be delivered and payed for the better, the dying breed of TV networks who wont support upcoming content creators nor take risks are hurting an aging industry, new platforms online are relaunching content creators.
That’s what worries me about it though. I don’t think it will be adding premium content as much as redirecting content behind premium paywalls to justify the existence of the subscription service. Some of the stuff I watch is low budget, but none of the people making it are lazy. They’re all working pretty hard to put out enough content and barely keeping up. If they start putting videos behind subscriber only paywalls that’s reducing the frequency of updates in a way that hurts the channel as a whole.
I would rather keep it simple. Subscribers get no ads and maybe some website features but all the content remains the same.
How many $$$ go to the content creators?
People pay money on twitch because at least $2.50 of every subscription goes to their favourite streamer.
Plus they get some emoticons.
Its not about getting you to pay for no ads, its about adding in more ads and giving users the feeling they have an option.
The inclusion of the ads will get worse, and YouTube can say later” don’t complain, we are giving you the option not to see them”
Also the article fails to mention that IOS devices will pay more $12.99 per month, im sure because of Googles and Apples fantastic relationship
Yeah that’s pretty much exactly what I was thinking. Hooray, more ads and even more annoying than they are on TV because it’s always the same one! At least SOMETIMES ads on TV aren’t that bloody red haired woman wanting insurance…
ABP still lets some ads through… Ublock blocks all ads and is a lighter application compared to ABP.
Yeah, if they use this to just gate content behind a pay wall without backing it up with Netflix level content it’s not going to work. Youtube is popular because it provides a service that people currently want, if they stop doing that people will go else where.
Nope.
As pointed out, why would people bother?
Of course, if this is just a step in the move to get everything behind a paywall, then people will just shift to something like vimeo or something else. People do not want to and will not pay for a lot of the stuff they watch for free “with ads” (blocked by adblock). This is the same stupid argument about people pirating music or video content: “oh, the studio just lost $30”. No, you didn’t, because there is no way those people were going to pay $30 that for the content they pirated. If they hadn’t pirated it, they’d just be watching it for free on YouTube or listening to it via the radio or whatever.
People are not going to pay $10+ per month for “premium YouTube”: They’re just going to tell you go to screw yourself.
get fucked.
I’d pay $10/month if youtube bought the rights to the NRL
I’m pretty sure, from what I’ve read, you get the Google Play Music subscription with this. Vice versa, if you already subscribe to Google Play Music (Google’s version of Spotify Premium for those not in the know), you will automatically get YouTube Red subscription.
Suddenly the value of YouTube Red just went right up.
I’m pretty sure, from what I’ve read, you get the Google Play Music subscription with this. Vice versa, if you already subscribe to Google Play Music (Google’s version of Spotify Premium for those not in the know), you will automatically get YouTube Red subscription.
Suddenly the value of YouTube Red just went right up.
It can be easy to use ABP, but remember that the ads you see goes towards the creators to make more content. I believe that their portion is 55% of the revenue of the ad. This allows them to create more content that we want to see.
The issue with YouTube Red, is that the dollars from the subscriptions are being divided amongst all creators on YouTube. This does not directly fund the creators that you personally are watching and may be receiving less than if you just watched the ads.
Im a huge fan of watching videos on YouTube, but I would rather directly pay to the creators who make content which I enjoy..