YouTube is working on a subscription service other than Music Key, according to CNBC, and it’s apparently launching within a few months. This paid option will reportedly scrub all ads off videos and is the same service YouTube has started pilot testing in 2013 for 99 cents a month. The news outlet said this piece of news came from Robert Kyncl, YouTube’s head of content and business operations, at the Code/Media conference. During the event, he also talked about how providers who’ve been testing unskippable ads within the past three months saw their annual revenue rates grow by 70 percent. If that’s the case, we wouldn’t be surprised if more “YouTubers” jump at the opportunity when it becomes widely available, making subscription look more desirable to some watchers, in turn. As to how much the subscription will cost and what other features will come with it, we’ll just have to wait and see: Kyncl said YouTube’s still “fine-tuning the experience” at the moment.
My take: YouTube is trying to market something so far that can be done completely away with by Adblock or similar plugins. Now if they could get around that and make ads play for everyone then they might have more leverage on the casual viewer. As for popular YouTubers this might go further as fans often ask for ways of supporting their favorite YouTubers yet have no real way to other than donating money VIA paypal or such and this might provide just that way of supporting them AND getting something annoying out of the way in return (Especially for those who don’t use Adblock already to support the YouTubers by viewing the commercials).
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.