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Anyone interested in paying anywhere from $0.99 to $7.99 a month for a single YouTube channel? Personally, I'll stick with Netflix for the same price and get thousands of shows.

Starting today, we’re launching a pilot program for a small group of partners that will offer paid channels on YouTube with subscription fees starting at $0.99 per month. Every channel has a 14-day free trial, and many offer discounted yearly rates. For example, Sesame Street will be offering full episodes on their paid channel when it launches. And UFC fans can see classic fights, like a full version of their first event from UFC’s new channel.
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I prefer seeing the same shows for free on mirror youtube channels.
 
I guess it depends on what ends up being offered. I've liked the idea of a la carte cable TV channels for a long time. but a la carte SHOWS is not what i had in mind. but again, if the offerings of a channel are decent i would consider it.

although, once a show has run its course and had the series finale, if i could pay 99 cents to get access to the entire series and could watch it when i want/where i want/how i want, that might get me to bite. i.e. Battlestar Galactica for 99 cents/month, i could see myself paying for that for a few months so i could get through the entire series from start to finish, at a cost way below the box DVD sets.
 
i cant find an edit button for my previous post.

I wonder if this is Googles way to sneak a la carte programming into the world. The cable channels are already fighting tooth and nail against have to offer a la carte, but if Youtube sneaks in and goes to the SHOWS rather than the CHANNELS they may be able to get people used to a la carte programming and reach a critical mass that will force a la carte options upon the industry as a whole.
 
It's a novel idea to try to compete against Amazon and Netflix but that's won't happen. The only other thing is for users to earn money from fans. But FreddieW for example. He does what, 1 video a week? No one will subscribe for that.

That leaves the pro streamers. People who treat streaming like a job. Starcraft2 gamers, Let's Play people, LoL gamers. Things like that. They play for hours a day and they have fans. They will benefit from subs, and fans will pay to get an sommercial-free live stream.

But there is already Twitch.tv for that. Not only that, after the streaming is done for the day they can just upload the archived video from Twitch to their YouTube account.

So while it is an interesting idea they are a bit late.
 
They picked an odd list to start this program. Only a couple of channels with anything worthwhile and those are charging some pretty high sub prices.

If you are running a channel with fans actually willing to pay you, then they are probably already sending donations anyway. And asking for a regular monthly payment will turn some of them off. So not really sure how this will help out the typical uploader.

The only way I would think about subbing to a channel would be like Notorius said. A buck or two for a whole TV series, watch it in a month and then unsub. But I don't really see Hollywood letting that happen.
 
Obviously this is the right direction, since most of us only watch 1-3 networks on our cable packages. The current content right now sucks as usual, so we'll have to give it a few years before you can finally get bigger networks on board. The $2/episode for shows will certainly fail. As much as I love a show like dexter, I dont think I'd pay more than 25 cents to watch 1 episode. It's going to be a looooooong time before we get what we want. Look at how Netflix is still evolving and only just now are they finally becoming a major player and threat to the TV networks. The best way for youtube to get people on board is to reduce the prices. Not one single network should be higher than $2/month and you should get all of their primetime shows in doing so. Season 1 of UFC? Think I'll pass....
 
I'll pay the channel where someone uploads all the torrents, movies, and tv shows I enjoy watching. That way I can watch them in HD right away, instead of renting, buying, recording, or downloading them all separately.

Seeing how that is not possible, how about $2-5 to let me watch all my favorite anime shows/movies in HD w/ subs?
 
I figured that Google would have started doing this the day it bought YouTube, it makes a lot of sense and another way to monetize this Internet powerhouse. But it is such a competitive market with so many ways of getting content but there's plenty of room for improvement for all of the players.
 
All those channels SUCK especially since most of this crap movies are already on netflix/hulu or free video on demand....
 
Same shitty service? Youtube is very hit or miss on their streaming. Some days it works just fine, others it's like you're on dial-up.
 
Grimham said:
Same shitty service? Youtube is very hit or miss on their streaming. Some days it works just fine, others it's like you're on dial-up.
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Yeah, I've been having a lot of problems with YouTube lately. Barely can even stream 720p on a 50 Mbps connection sometimes. No way in hell I would pay them money for that kind of service.
 
Most of the problems with Youtube's delivery is the caching servers your ISP is using I believe. In most cases, if you block those caching servers on your end, you'll get the content directly from Youtube at much faster speeds.

While the caching servers, in theory, should be a lot faster than something outside of your ISPs network, I believe the problem is them being overloaded.

Just a theory that's based on the recent information regarding blocking specific IPs on some ISPs which seems to fix the issues with slow speeds on Youtube.
 
Bait-and-switch is a form of fraud used in retail sales but also practiced in other
contexts. Giving something away for free and then charging when they are within catching distance of the dangling carrot is something like the removal of their ads.
 
sliverjazz said:
Bait-and-switch is a form of fraud used in retail sales but also practiced in other
contexts. Giving something away for free and then charging when they are within catching distance of the dangling carrot is something like the removal of their ads.
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I don't think bait-and-switch really applies here. It's more like a drug dealer giving free "tastes" and then expecting you to come crawling back, having to pay to get more.
 
Would greatly depend on the content they make. If its like a paid cable channel with high production values and NO FUCKING intrusive ads of any kind I might bite once the channel gets good programming.

But I feel like its an experiment that won't work just yet. Ricky Gervias went on The Daily Show to promote his channel and it only has like 300,000 to 400,000 subscribers meanwhile I know channels that have never been mentioned once on TV by a celeb that have 5-10 million subs.
 
I would love to see something like Fallout Nuka Break use this format so we could get regular episodes :)
 
Wow, I remember when Youtube was actually pretty cool in 2005/2006, was add-free, and didn't charge individuals to watch channels on top of adds on top of copyright BS.

Very sad.
As if Google didn't have enough money. :rolleyes:
 
Red Falcon said:
Wow, I remember when Youtube was actually pretty cool in 2005/2006, was add-free, and didn't charge individuals to watch channels on top of adds on top of copyright BS.

Very sad.
As if Google didn't have enough money. :rolleyes:
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As if Google had a choice re copyright. As to the rest... Google bought YouTube to make money and I honestly doubt it has.
 
Dark Shade said:
Yup, slippery slope of this:

http://media.packetlife.net/media/blog/attachments/262/without_net_neutrality.png

:(
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That's fake, right?

Depending on the youtube channels and the frequency/quality of the videos, I would pay to subscribe to a channel.

Too bad even the good stuff on youtube is still mostly crap.

Video Title: "What is Quantum Internet"
Video: 30 seconds of two guys farting on camera and making smarmy comments. Maybe at some point they get to the content. I've already closed that tab.

Take Mental Floss for instance. Videos from that channel are barely watchable despite the good information because the guy's commentary and demeanor make it nearly unbearable to watch.

And VSauce is the same way. Sometimes fine, sometimes unbearable.

But CPG Grey and MinutePhysics, awesome! I'd pay for those if there was one video a week.
 
Depending on the youtube channels and the frequency/quality of the videos, I would pay to subscribe to a channel.
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Yeah. I'd love the option to subscribe to any channel I want with the benefit of removing ads while on that channel.
 
RealityCrunch said:
Yeah. I'd love the option to subscribe to any channel I want with the benefit of removing ads while on that channel.
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I use AdBlock plugin on Chrome and I don't get any ads on youtube or Hulu. Youtube plays normally (but without ads). Hulu makes you wait on a blank screen and tries to make you feel guilty for not letting them load the ads.
 
Fuk utub for doing this shit, its the start of bigger things which will probably end up with a huge proportion of utub being subs only.
 
I don't mind that they do this but... I can see it just being part of something bigger to screw everyone over.

Youtube just doesn't have anything consistent/good enough to even validate this as a good idea.
 
People can do without casual entertainment. I can careless what the next video is coming out because it's going to cost me a monthly to watch it.
I can see many channels signing up, and then canceling because their fan base refused to pay and went elsewhere.
 
MavericK96 said:
Yeah, I've been having a lot of problems with YouTube lately. Barely can even stream 720p on a 50 Mbps connection sometimes. No way in hell I would pay them money for that kind of service.
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I have that same problem on my 50Mbit, but I have noticed that some official channels like for bands and the like, there is no problem at all. It's all in the throttling and yes, I have tried to block certain IPs on my router that were caching it with so-so success.

A friend of mine was the creative director for a start up involved in video streaming and they actually had met with some Google representatives, he told me after I mentioned how terrible the streaming has gotten over the years. He said that the reps explicitly stated that Google really doesn't give a rip about it because they get the ad revenue from what you are searching for on there. He said that they were that candid about it.

I would gladly pay a couple dollars per month for unthrottled streaming because it's not going to change otherwise.
 
d_stilgar said:
I use AdBlock plugin on Chrome and I don't get any ads on youtube or Hulu. Youtube plays normally (but without ads). Hulu makes you wait on a blank screen and tries to make you feel guilty for not letting them load the ads.
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Problem is then the channel owner doesn't get ad revenue, which for the channels I watch is kind of their life blood.
 
I don't really watch more than 3-4 shows at any one time and would be happy to do this if they had the content I wanted for less than the price of cable or netflix. Most of the stuff on netflix/hulu/amazon prime is garbage
 
If we could get babyfirst in english+portuguese & globo, could probably cut the cord.
 
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