There is little left Youtube from the beginning. Since the video platform fell into Google’s hands, the search giant has made and undone many changes to increase its profitability. Another possible move, which is just a rumor at this point, would be to restrict 4K and higher resolutions to YouTube Premium subscribers who already enjoy benefits like watching content without ads.

After testing sa In the unskippable ad experiment, Reddit users reported that 4K resolution was limited on their mobile devices and they had to subscribe to YouTube Premium to regain the feature. A social media user named Ihatessmokealarms posted a shot two weeks ago in which you can see the 4K resolution of the Premium model with the phrase that says “press to update”.

Google has not provided any information about this at the moment, but all indications are that it will run another one along with the advertising experiment launched in August 2022, in which a few users will see their access to the limited 4K resolution on YouTube Premium.

4K resolution is reportedly limited to YouTube Premium.

It is not clear which systems were ultimately affected by the restriction of access to 4K, as many said they could use said resolution normally, but saw that most spend mid-range or low-end mobile phones and/or use monitors that work in 1080p is possible , that they didn’t even realize they were the subject of an experiment. If Google wanted to have any impact, it had to be selective with its users.

Added to this is the fact that today most of the content provided through the platform does not support 4K resolution, which is motivated by the fact that for a long time the majority of YouTube videos were consumed from mobile phones. We’ll see if the company eventually decides to limit 4K and higher resolutions to Premium subscribers, but the current market situation means that the specified resolution is mainly usable on TVs, high-end computers and high-end mobile phones that are connected via Wi-Fibecause you don’t have to be a lynx to see what would happen if you consumed HD videos through a mobile plan.

Limiting 4K resolution and higher to YouTube Premium subscribers could be Google’s attempt to justify the $11.99 per month price tag. Its price is higher than that of video-on-demand platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney + (at least the most basic plan of each for reference).