A 4K Premium paywall is being tested on YouTube.

But when will you be able to view it?

 

Since YouTube started to support 4K videos twelve years ago, the number of users who watch content at that resolution is likely much lower than that of 1080p. Nevertheless, users who have fast internet and who watch short-form content on 4K TVs or the few 4K phones currently available will typically want to get as many pixels as they can. But if a recent development materialises, that desire can get entangled with additional costs.

 

Over the past month, a few claims have surfaced, with Reddit being the most popular. They claim that the 2160p resolution tier in YouTube’s resolution picker has been labelled as Premium. It is requested of users to “touch to upgrade.” Naturally, this has caused some people to worry that 4K watching may soon only be available to YouTube Premium users.

 

The package, which costs $12 per month, provides access to YouTube Music Premium as well as ad-free watching with the option of background play (listening to the audio while using other apps).

 

Google has recently been reducing expenses and boosting profits in a number of ways, as 9to5Google correctly notes. The business has some precedent to stand on because its cloud gaming project, Stadia, had a Pro subscription tier that charged for 4K quality streaming (not that it matters much as it’s scheduled to shut down early next year).

 

Despite this, integrating 4K viewing into YouTube Premium would still be a step backward and is unlikely to be well received by Premium users. This is excellent news for YouTube since it will help it conserve bandwidth. However, if the platform does launch, we’ll be interested to see how 1440p streaming performs and whether the estimated 56% reduction in data usage is indeed significant.

 

A spokeswoman for YouTube informed Android Police that the company was unable to respond at this time.