YouTube Offering Ad-Free Paid Subscriptions

[Tom Bombadildo]

For a long time now, YouTube has offered monetization options for Youtube video creators that play monetized ads before, during, or after videos. A lot of people aren't too "thrilled" about the ads, and a lot of people simply ignore them or use adblock, but now YouTube is offering a third option; paid subscriptions.

This option will act in a similar fashion to Twitch.tv's paid subscription service, fans can choose to pay a monthly fee and subscribe to their favorite YouTube channels, bypassing all ads while continuing to support their favorite content creators. There aren't a lot of details on pricing or whether it can be a set fee by the creator or a YouTube-set price, but it's happening.

You can read the full email sent to content creators here:

Spoiler

Dear YouTube Partner,

Your fans want choices. Not only do they want to watch what they want, whenever they want, anywhere and on any device they choose, they want YouTube features built specifically with their needs in mind. Over the past several months, we’ve taken bold new steps to bring these experiences to life. Since inviting hundreds of thousands of fans into our YouTube Music Key Beta, we've seen tremendous engagement. And we've seen an equally enthusiastic response for our new YouTube Kids app, designed to give families a simpler and safer video-viewing experience – it’s already crossed 2 million installations in less than a month.

We’re excited to build on this momentum by taking another big step in favour of choice: offering fans an ad-free version of YouTube for a monthly fee. By creating a new paid offering, we’ll generate a new source of revenue that will supplement your fast growing advertising revenue.

So what’s next?

Launching a new paid offering will require us to update your terms through your Creator Studio Dashboard – a process that should feel familiar to anyone who went through a similar process three years ago when we began distributing and monetizing your content on mobile devices. Today, mobile represents over half of all watchtime and mobile revenue has increased by 200% in the last year. Just as with mobile, we’re confident that this latest contract update will excite your fans and generate a previously untapped, additional source of revenue for you. Please look out for our notification, review it and let us know your thoughts.

It’s an exciting year for YouTube, as we push ourselves into uncharted territories. But we continue to be guided by a desire to deliver the choices fans want and the revenue you need. By working closely with you, we know it’ll be a successful journey.

The YouTube Team

This is an interesting step forward for YouTube, and opens up a whole new way for creators to earn money from their videos. Whether there will be a huge following for this, who knows, but I'm certain that many are more than willing to help support their favorite reviewer or Let's Player.

 

[Adeka]

Just makes me want to use adblock on youtube even more. I remember the days when youtube didn't even have monetization.

 

[ComeTurismO]

What a shitty idea, who the heck would pay money for that?

 

[Nightwish]

Only if Google were to stop selling me and storing data for the dictatorships of tomorrow. Since they won't, I won't stop using adblock either, and that doesn't even approach a fair trade.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

What a shitty idea, who the heck would pay money for that?

Twitch has the same exact setup, and streamers get tons of money by people subscribing. I'd imagine the same exact thing will happen with this.

 

[the_randomizer]

Adblock Plus, anti-adblock, etc and I'm already set Screw paid YT.

 

[Jayro]

Sorry, I'm not going to start paying for something I already enjoy for free using Adblock Plus. Terrible idea, Google.

 

[Blaze163]

I assume this is what's responsible for my PS3's YouTube app suddenly interrupting my videos with ads all the time. Wasn't doing it last week. Now the ads just show up out of nowhere and when one video ends it plays an ad that stops the next video loading, then when I click the next video in the sequence half the time it then inexplicably skips the video and goes to the next list.

Well fuck you Youtube, put as many ads as you like up, I'll skip every single one on principle just to avoid paying you anything because you're pissing me off.

 

[Vengenceonu]

Twitch has the same exact setup, and streamers get tons of money by people subscribing. I'd imagine the same exact thing will happen with this.

This is completely different, that setup works with twitch because its centered around games. People who take twitch seriously stream for hours, multiple times a week. Most people on youtube (even some of the big stars who arent involved in gaming) upload something once a week or even longer. A twitch subscription is like a gaming netflix. This formula wont work for news related youtubers (who would pay for news they can get for free), wont work for music either (spoitify), dont even get me started on beauty...

 

[pyromaniac123]

AHAHAHAHAHAHA. Not a chance.

 

[cdoty]

That probably explains the recent rules to remove sponsorships from YouTube videos.

 

[Par39]

It is not a terrible idea, some of us want to support the people we enjoy and have turned off Adblock, now you also have the option to remove the ads while still supporting the Youtuber. I think it's a good idea, depending on pricing, but I'll stick to watching ads.

 

[cdoty]

Well fuck you Youtube, put as many ads as you like up, I'll skip every single one on principle just to avoid paying you anything because you're pissing me off.

The sad thing is you're screwing over the creators. YouTube is making a fortune and a few thousand here or there isn't going to stop them. But a few thousand will stop people creating videos for YouTube, or result in them adding their own sponsored content.

 

[Foxi4]

Just makes me want to use adblock on youtube even more. I remember the days when youtube didn't even have monetization.

I remember when YouTube didn't have monetization too. Do you know what else it didn't have back then? Worthwhile content. Content doesn't create itself, servers don't run themselves, and it just so happens that YouTube doesn't actually make any money for Google. No joke, it was a big story a few months back.

http://uk.businessinsider.com/youtube-still-doesnt-make-google-any-money-2015-2?r=US

Whatever revenue they get is spent on maintenance, expansion and commissions for YouTubers - Google virtually doesn't profit from YouTube at all.

The sad thing is you're screwing over the creators.

YouTube is making a fortune and a few thousand here or there isn't going to stop them. But a few thousand will stop people creating videos for YouTube, or result in them adding their own sponsored content.

See above. YouTube is not profitable, it's a money pit. However, what you're saying about screwing the creators over is in fact true - YouTubers get commissions based on ad revenue - skipping ads harms them, not Google. This is why I'm running Adblock Plus on just about any site except YouTube on the channels that I subscribe to or other sites that I want to support.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

This is completely different, that setup works with twitch because its centered around games. People who take twitch seriously stream for hours, multiple times a week. Most people on youtube (even some of the big stars who arent involved in gaming) upload something once a week or even longer. A twitch subscription is like a gaming netflix. This formula wont work for news related youtubers (who would pay for news they can get for free), wont work for music either (spoitify), dont even get me started on beauty...

I can say the same exact thing about streamers. Some only stream once a week, some only stream a couple hours, some people stream free games anybody can play for free. A lot of Youtubers upload hours of videos, multiple times a day. The highest subscription count Youtubers are either Let's Players or Reviewers who upload videos daily. Sure, there are some Youtubers out there who upload once a week, but who's to say they'll even meet the requirements for this option? I would imagine, much like their partnership service, Youtube will have some sort of requirements uploaders have to meet before they can use this.

 

[RevPokemon]

Hmm adblock for free or pay for no ads from YouTube??? Not sure what is the better deal


(Sarcasm)

 

[Vipera]

Guise I'm so smart I block the ads with a program and I'm proud of it xd fuck those who want to earn money from their work xdd

 

[Foxi4]

Hmm adblock for free or pay for no ads from YouTube??? Not sure what is the better deal


(Sarcasm)

This depends on whether or not you want to support content creators. If you pay close attention to the post, you'll notice that it's a subscription for fans of certain channels who want to show their support but don't want to watch ads while at it.

 

[RevPokemon]

This depends on whether or not you want to support content creators. If you pay close attention to the post, you'll notice that it's a subscription for fans of certain channels who want to show their support but don't want to watch ads while at it.

If I wanted to support them I'd just use patreon or donate.

 

[Foxi4]

If I wanted to support them I'd just use patreon or donate.

Not all YouTubers have Patreon or accept direct donations. They're not beggars, they're content creators. Some people want to earn money, not just get donations. That, and there's the mess of taxation to deal with etc. - pay slips are an easier way to manage that.