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Youtube to begin offering paid subscriptions.


Chaos Warp

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By Ronald Grover

(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.

YouTube, the world's largest video website, allows creators to set subscription fees and accept advertisements, at their discretion, for the channels they create.

Prices for the initial 30 content providers start at 99 cents a month, and will average $2.99 monthly, company officials said in a briefing.

YouTube has spoken repeatedly about its intent to experiment with paid channels, and has made no secret about its intent to be a major player in quality content.

In March, YouTube said on its blog that it has more than 1 billion unique users a month. The new subscription service will be available in 10 countries at launch.

Additional content creators will be added, the officials said, although it isn't immediately clear when. They will be "self-certified" through an application process.

YouTube has spent more than $100 million to help about 150 media partners create and promote specialized YouTube video channels dedicated to topics ranging from food to sports.

The new pay service was announced on the company's blog.

(Reporting by Ronald Grover; Edited by Edwin Chan and Phil Berlowitz)

 

http://news.yahoo.com/youtube-starts-paid-subscription-190738390.html

 

OH FOR THE LOVE OF FUCK FUCKING STOP YOUTUBE FOR FUCKS FUCKING SAKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Edited by Generations (Chaos Warp)
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oh no, not another thing i won't ever touch.

 

what shall i dooooo

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How is this a bad thing? As far as I know they aren't charging for user created content, just shit like TV shows.

Should we really need to pay for things on YouTube?

Edited by Spin Attaxx
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I don't see how this is a big deal. This will enable people like the CBC, HBO and others to put shows that would normally be relegated to TV only on Youtube and make a profit from them.

 

So let's say you want to watch I don't know...Doctor Who. The BBC could have episodes on Youtube and require you to pay to view them, much like Netflix.

 

User created content on the other hand won't be part of this paid subscription model (In theory it could, in practice it won't be). For user created content ads are a much better means of making money as you still give people the instant access as well as the illusion of the videos being "free" (wanna watch a video? Here's a short ad).

 

I think this is overall a good thing for Youtube, and should making watching some TV shows a bit more convenient for some of us.

Edited by SkyLlama
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I find this kind of ridiculous. I think there wouldn't be a problem with it except for the fact that YT has been free for years and people are not going to want to start paying now. There are even officially licensed TV shows on it such as the stuff FUNi provides (although this is much more limited than other venues such as Hulu or Crunchyroll, of course). I can't see much incentive in this honestly. People are too used to not paying for anything on YT that I can't see this taking off quite as well as other video sites that offer paid subscriptions.

 

At the same time it's probably not going to affect any of the normal stuff I watch on YT whatsoever so I'm not really angry over it. However it strikes me as incredibly silly.

 

EDIT: Yeah after reading that YT has already implemented paid stuff in the past, I don't think so much that this would be a problem. It definitely isn't going to be affecting any of the existing content on the site in either case.

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Should we really need to pay for things on YouTube?

 

Having to pay for videos made by users would be really stretching it, but this seems like one of the ideal mediums for channels & stuff to distribute their shows. This isn't the first time Youtube's charged for stuff either. They've done it with movies as well.

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So I read that as "non-subscribers will get even more frequent unskippable ads than before, and even less reliable download rates, just to make a subscription more tempting to avoid the hassle".

 

Frankly, I'm surprised it took them this long to cross that line.

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This will not stop me from torrenting my shows, not that I think it's really supposed to have that effect.

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Why is this a bad thing?

 

It's not, people just love to get angry and jump to conclusions that's all.

Edited by SkyLlama
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I dunno about you guys, but I've seen stuff offered on YouTube from official content providers at cost for at least a year now anyway, so...

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Not really seeing the problem here. It's not like every single channel would be doing this, and the examples it gives are big name companies that usually don't want their stuff on Youtube anyway due to rights issues. Nothing wrong with them making money off of a service. 

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There is already paid content on YouTube. I run across television shows and movies you can buy or rent from the copyright holders fairly often, so I don't see paid channels from media conglomerates as too far removed from this.

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I dunno about you guys, but I've seen stuff offered on YouTube from official content providers at cost for at least a year now anyway, so...

 

Longer than that.

 

You can pay to watch certain movies on youtube for years. Really don't see at all what people are moaning about over this.

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I had no idea that there was already paid content on YouTube, in which case I suppose this strikes me as a pretty fair decision.

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This is actually very old news. This was shown a while ago.

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@Sean: Yeah. It's been around for at least a year, if not more. It just hasn't been used very much.

Edited by Special Operative Blaire
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This is nothing new, is it? There's been paid channels for a while now. Isn't that how channels like Machinima work?

 

Also as long as I have mah Grumps for free, all is well! :D

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Unlike other companies seeking to control the internet, it looks like YT is trying to actually adapt in using it.

 

I don't think they'll be stupid and force people to pay for everything on it, tho.

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I actually kinda like this idea. It's cheap and basically gives people another way to view content.

 

As long as it doesn't start interfering with user created content there's nothing to worry about.....

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Hopefully this won't affect user content too much if at all, but like others in this thread I have noticed paid videos such as films that you can watch on youtube and stuff like that, so I guess it was bound to happen eventually. Though I doubt it'll do a damn thing to combat piracy unless they price the films really low to make them appealing or something like that, but I don't know a great deal about the politics of that sort of thing.

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The only way this could turn ugly is if they give uploaders the option to charge people to watch their videos. If that happens, I'm sure a lot of people will stop using it, and find another service, or someone will make one.

 

I don't think most uploaders would be that. Everyone with common sense knows ads pay much better for normal channels. Plus I don't think much would be lost if some people decided to try and make people pay.

 

Still though it be best if normal channels never got this feature.

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The only way this could turn ugly is if they give uploaders the option to charge people to watch their videos. If that happens, I'm sure a lot of people will stop using it, and find another service, or someone will make one.

 

even of they did do that, I doubt many members of the youtube community would bother to sign up. Youtubers (at least the creators anyway) by and large are intelligent people with a lot of respect for their fans. It's one thing to offer skippable ads, it's another to actively charge folk to watch your rants.

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