YouTube is launching it’s subscription service YouTube Red today, which allows ad-free and background listening among other options for $9.99 a month.
YouTube announced Oct. 21 that YouTube Red will be launching Wednesday, Oct. 28, which is the site’s newest service to offer more options to its users, along with competing with the other streaming services.
According to the YouTube Blog, “YouTube Red lets you enjoy videos across all of YouTube without ads, while also letting you save videos to watch offline on your phone or tablet and play videos in the background.”
The service costs $9.99 a month and also includes membership to the newly launched Gaming app and the brand new YouTube Music app — “designed to make discovering, watching and listening to music easier than ever.” While I’m not totally sure what makes this so unique, it allows you to play music in the background and choose to only listen to the audio to save your data or battery. There isn’t a clear release date on the music app yet.
You also get access to Google Play Music with your subscription. It’s just about the same cost, so if you’re already a subscriber to that service it will probably be worth it to get the other, too. It’s also reported that next year, there will be exclusive, members-only content like shows and movies that feature some of the biggest content creators on the site.
There’s been some harsh feedback about Red, especially from the content creators who make a living from producing videos for the site.
YouTube partners will have to update their terms in order to be featured on the new service, and if they don’t, their content will be marked as private. According to Gizmodo, a majority of the creators have updated. PewDiePie, the highest subscribed partner on the site, has already agreed to make exclusive content when the time comes.
While it’s claimed that everything will stay free, the fact that there will begin to be some exclusive content for subscribers, it seems reasonable to worry that the future could be going to the subscriber-only side of YouTube with less uploaded to the free version with ads. While it’s not clear how it will happen, it seems like YouTube could one day become a platform with more locked content than free uploads.
I understand the added content as an additional incentive for people to subscribe to YouTube Red, but it seems like the site could continue to make all content available to everyone as a more fair option. The reason so many people watch content on YouTube is because it’s free. Most people don’t mind dealing with a few ads here and there because they’re accessing more entertainment on the site than they ever could need.
The price seems a little steep for what is offered. While the features are all great in their own respects, added up they just don’t seem to be worth around $10 each month. I’m an avid YouTube watcher, but this service isn’t something I would ever feel like paying for.
Sophie Kruse is a senior studying journalism. What are your thoughts on YouTube Red? Email her at sk139011@ohio.edu or tweet her @kruseco.
