You may soon need YouTube Premium to watch videos in 4K resolution.

You may soon need to purchase a paid YouTube Premium subscription, which costs $12 a month, just to watch 4K videos on your computer or tablet.

• What is happening? Google is testing a mandatory YouTube Premium subscription to watch videos at resolutions above 1440p.
• Why care? Because YouTube Premium has been successful so far and Google is now being encouraged to take more features away from non-Premium users.
• What to do? Now is probably the best time to reconsider the YouTube Premium subscription, which includes benefits such as no ads, background playback, and new experimental features.

Google Tests Mandatory YouTube Premium Subscription for 4K Videos

People who were included in these tests reported on Twitter and Reddit that they were being asked to upgrade to YouTube Premium to watch clips in 2160p (4K) resolution on their computer or tablet.

The scope of this test is unclear, so we do not currently know which platforms, devices, and countries pass this test and may be affected if Google decides to implement this policy.

Affected users reported seeing this message on the YouTube mobile app on iOS and Android, and on the desktop interface on youtube.com.

So, after testing up to 12 YouTube ads for non-premium users, now some users have reported that they also need to get a premium account just to watch videos in 4K. pic.twitter.com/jJodoAxeDp

— Alvin (@sondesix) October 1, 2022

YouTube Premium costs $12/month or $120/year.

Pure greed from Google?

Google has been offering this subscription for years. At first, people ignored it, as no one in their right mind wanted to pay Google money just to stop ads on YouTube.

But after YouTube increased the number and frequency of ads in videos and people got more and more annoyed, YouTube Premium suddenly seemed like a great deal – what’s twelve dollars a month in exchange for the many minutes of your life wasted advertising on YouTube? Read: How not to overpay for YouTube Premium

In September 2021, Google reported that YouTube Premium and YouTube Music passed 50 million subscribers last September. Naturally, we hope that Google will never block features such as high-resolution video from YouTube Premium. But the very fact that it is now being tested raises our doubts.