Google plans to offer an ad-free version of YouTube. The question is whether or not you would pay for the same content you can get for free. There are no indications that Google plans to add premium content for paid subscribers. The only difference we can tell is that paid subscribers will enjoy ad-free viewing. The approach is similar to that taken by Spotify for streaming music. The question is whether or not it will work for video.
Over the weekend I asked a few friends what they thought was the most popular video streaming service in the world. Without hesitation they all answered Netflix. To be fair we were watching Netflix at the time so that may have swayed their answers. Still I think many of us think of services like Netflix and Hulu. YouTube gets let out of the conversation sometimes. Yet YouTube is by far the most popular video streaming site in the world with over a billion users watching videos on the site each month.
The first question is whether or not you would be willing to pay for ad-free access to YouTube. You will get a chance to answer in the months to come as Google plans to roll out a premium ad-free version of YouTube later this year. The next question is how much you would pay to cut the advertising out of YouTube. Google has not set a price on the service yet. All we know so far is that YouTube Music Key costs $9.99 a month so I doubt the video streaming service will cost less. Perhaps they will eventually bundle the services. For now let’s assume the price is $9.99 a month. Will you pay $9.99 a month for ad-free YouTube?
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