The head of YouTube says Google is considering offering a subscription-based version of the online video service. Speaking at the Code/Mobile conference this week, Susan Wojcicki suggested that one way to do that would be to offer subscribers an ad-free experience.

What do you think? Would you pay a monthly fee to get rid of the ads that play before videos?

youtube ad

There’ve been rumors that YouTube was working on a subscription service for a while… and some of those rumors center around the launch of a new YouTube music service.

Wojcicki confirms that the company is working on that music service, and that it could launch soon.

It’s not entirely clear how that service would differ from a more general YouTube subscription service, or whether it’d have anything to do with Google’s other music subscription service, Google Play Music All Access.

In other YouTube news, Wojcicki revealed that about half of all the views YouTube videos receive are coming from smartphones and tablets.

[polldaddy poll=8406149]

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10 replies on “Would you pay a subscription for ad-free YouTube?”

  1. I would consider it for perhaps $5/month. That’s what I currently pay for Niconico, a very similar video service, and that subscription model seems to work for them.

  2. No. That would mean signing in and let them track me. They should pay me for that, not the other way round.

  3. LOL. I didn’t even know youtube had ads. My browser plugin blocks them. I wouldn’t use it if it had ads.

      1. I use the Chrome extension “Magic Actions for YouTube”. Haven’t seen a Youtube video ad for years.

  4. I might if it means I can keep watching the copyrighted materials that are littered on the site. Nothing like paying Google for other peoples creative works. If I could make money on something you created and not have to pay you for it? Money baby. They make ad money off those works, so why not offer subscriptions too? Maybe they will even give a chuck to those rights holders.

  5. I think the majority of people would not pay for
    a YouTube subscription. It’s very hard to wean
    people off something that’s been free for so long,
    unless it offers value-added services that are
    worth paying for
    – YouTube “guarantees” server availability to its subscribers
    so videos play smoothly
    – YouTube makes videos available early to subscribers,
    or notifies subscribers of hot new videos as they
    become available
    – YouTube makes available a player that can download
    or buffer videos that subscribers can watch anytime
    This would be akin to what Tivo does with certain video
    streams.

    As for myself, I download the videos to watch anytime later.

  6. no but i bet millions would, all those kids who spend hours just watching youtube videos.. could never get into it myself, only time i binge watch youtube is music videos and paintball games.. but others, they would easily pay $5/ month to watch all their youtube content ad free

  7. As long as it doesn’t cost more than 20$ per year with the option of paying in full at the beginning of the year. It wouldn’t bother me, however I need to know what else I’m getting besides the regular service as premium services for subscribers, extra features, extra contents, higher resolution(1080p), etc etc.

Comments are closed.