Some Reddit users have discovered indicators that 4K video quality could soon be behind a paywall on YouTube.
Users have provided photos showing that the 2160p (4K) option has been labelled “Premium,” tapping which will demand an upgrade to YouTube Premium.
If these changes were to be true, this might be a major inconvenience for a large number of people given that most smartphones or smart TV are now included high-resolution displays so watching YouTube videos of lower quality will not result in a good viewing experience.
YouTube and Google have not yet made any public statements on these discoveries. However, it’s possible that this is just another case of the company testing forthcoming platform improvements among select users, as how they experimented with up to five non-skippable bumper adverts before the start of videos with a small subset of viewers last month.
Source: (1)