YouTube ends highly criticised experiment of hiding 4K content behind paywall

A few days ago YouTube users noticed a somewhat shocking change: the service had started requiring YouTube Premium subscribers to be able to watch videos in 4K resolution. Of course, such a radical attempt to make users pay for YouTube sparked a strong backlash in the user community, and Google became the recipient of massive criticism. That's why the company decided to back off and abandon the idea of ​​hiding 4K resolution video playback behind a paywall.

YouTube's official Twitter account revealed that the requirement to pay a subscription for 4K content was just an experiment, which the company has now ended. Now, all users can continue watching high-definition videos on all platforms without subscribing to YouTube Premium.

Google is not commenting on why it decided to abandon the idea. It's not hard to imagine that the massive backlash was one of the reasons behind this decision, but it's worth noting that the TeamYouTube account is still asking users to voice their opinion on the experiment. This perhaps leaves the possibility that we will see something similar again in the future, this time with more determination.

The YouTube Premium subscription costs €8.49/month and gives access to all videos of the service without ads, with the ability to play in the background, the ability to download for offline viewing, and of course access to the YouTube Music service.