YouTube is highly regarded as one of the best free video services around, with millions of viewers and content providers sharing their interests, and many companies contributing as well. But YouTube could change that with a possible subscription program.
The Verge has reported that, per a published article by Variety, Google-owned YouTube is “exploring the prospect of launching its own subscription VOD service.” With it, YouTube expects to keep its current business model in place, but could launch its subscription service with ad-free streaming, as well as content provided by superstars in the YouTube Originals fold.
This isn’t the first time YouTube has considered a subscription program, as the company is hard at work on its Music Key service, which provides a number of music videos and free streaming through Google Play Music for $7.99 per month.
But with video, this could bring YouTube into competition with other streaming companies that provide original programming, including Vimeo, Hulu and Vessel. A lot of offers have been made to content providers to produce content on these premium channels, in exchange for a better percentage of ad revenue. With the subscription program, YouTube could create a pipeline that gets more cash to those content creators, while still producing a small amount of revenue for itself.
Still, the introduction of such a service could stir up controversy for those that have gotten used to what YouTube has created in the past few years, should some content be “locked out” exclusively for the service in favor of simply visiting the creator’s channel and viewing with an optional ad.
Nothing is official from the company yet (just the quote from Variety), so, at the moment, the subscription plan is still very much in the air. But here’s to hoping that YouTube treads these waters carefully, so it can remain financially lucrative for itself and its partners, while still keeping the video channel wide open for the millions of viewers that visit on a daily basis.
