YouTube starts paid subscription service

[Gerald]

Everyone wants to charge for their services, apparently

(Reuters) - Google's YouTube video service is dipping its toe into pay television by starting on Thursday a subscription service with 30 content creators, including children's programmers Sesame Street and Muppet creator The Jim Henson Co, and the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...9480Z520130509

Note: Thu May 9, 2013 4:34pm EDT

I only watch Hobby Let's Players so matters little to me.

[Cybermat47]

Well, it's understandable seeing as some popular users like PewDiePie are paid for making videos. It makes sense that YouTube gets some money from users.

But it'll probably escalate so much that we'll have to pay to see normal videos.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Cybermat47

But it'll probably escalate so much that we'll have to pay to see normal videos.

That would kill them because people would simply move to one of several other video sites that do not charge for videos.They make a pretty good revenue from selling space to advertisers as well.Depending on how they set the system up it could work.The clincher will be getting viewers to want to pay for something that they had previously been able to view for free and I predict that some folks that have a large following may dislike the idea of charging their viewers.Especially when they already get money from advertisers and from selling their own products.FPS Russian for example he sells those shirts.


They are trying to money garb basically and I only see other companies like the ones that are listed in the article are going to bite the numerous private individuals/groups that have popular You tube channels will most likely simply move to another video site.If every video site decides to charge then some will simply choose to start their on site if they can manage to get a few sponsors which many of the very popular channels can easily do (some already do have sponsors). I predict that Youtube will be sorry in the long term with this plan of action especially if they require any channel with a certain amount of subscribers or higher to be subscribed.

[Red October1984]

Ha! They won't get any money from me.

As long as it's just certain channels i don't mind, as i can most likely download the videos elsewhere if i'm interested in them.

For the people who frequently watch those channels this is a big hit however and i can see their frustrations. I've got this feeling like a lot of these internet companies are trying to squeeze much more money out of their service with stupid new inventions..

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

That would kill them because people would simply move to one of several other video sites that do not charge for videos.They make a pretty good revenue from selling space to advertisers as well.Depending on how they set the system up it could work.The clincher will be getting viewers to want to pay for something that they had previously been able to view for free and I predict that some folks that have a large following may dislike the idea of charging their viewers.Especially when they already get money from advertisers and from selling their own products.FPS Russian for example he sells those shirts.


They are trying to money garb basically and I only see other companies like the ones that are listed in the article are going to bite the numerous private individuals/groups that have popular You tube channels will most likely simply move to another video site.If every video site decides to charge then some will simply choose to start their on site if they can manage to get a few sponsors which many of the very popular channels can easily do (some already do have sponsors). I predict that Youtube will be sorry in the long term with this plan of action especially if they require any channel with a certain amount of subscribers or higher to be subscribed.

Agreed.