Watching videos in 4K resolution has become quite common in the world. Connectivity in Spain and many places on the planet allow it, and this resolution is already practically a standard in smart televisions.
Part of this massive adoption has been thanks to YouTube, which has allowed you to watch videos in 4K quality since 2015, being accessible to all types of users (free or premium). However, a new rumor suggests that this could change soon, as you will no longer be able to watch YouTube videos in 4K if you don’t pay .
Free YouTube could leave compatibility behind
with videos in 4K or higher resolutions
As you probably know, YouTube has a couple of premium subscriptions that, when paid for, give you some benefits over the free version. The main attraction is that advertising is eliminated on the platform, although there are also other benefits: playback in the background, the floating window, downloading and even YouTube experiments such as zooming in on videos.
The different content playback resolutions on YouTube have always been available to everyone, without limitations. However, a Reddit thread by user u/Ihatesmokealarms suggests that this will no longer be the case. Tests? The user posted a screenshot showing the YouTube resolution selector, to the surprise that the 2160p (4K) playback option is locked .
The image indicates that this resolution is exclusive to premium users and clicking on it takes you to the YouTube subscriptions section. The platform has not declared anything about this measure, so everything remains a rumor.
However, YouTube could well be carrying out one of its famous “experiments” , those that start testing on different accounts without telling anyone. Testing tends to be for a limited time and then everything goes back to normal, but it’s a method that YouTube uses to measure how accepted one of its ideas would be. Therefore, if the test went well, they could easily carry out the change in the future.
Making 4K resolution exclusive would be a huge step backwards
Right off the bat, you don’t have to worry , as it will be temporary and they may not even use your account in the test. However, if the change were to become a reality and 4K resolution went premium, we believe that YouTube would be taking a huge step backwards.
Until now, premium subscriptions have always been about adding benefits, but never to the detriment of free users. To carry out this measure, YouTube would be failing this principle and would condemn the majority of its users to play content in 1080p .
On mobile phones the problem would not be so serious due to the size of the screen, but on Smart TVs with native 4K resolution and large screen diagonals it would be too obvious. We hope it doesn’t happen , but only time will tell if the rumor becomes reality. And if it becomes a fact, you can still get free YouTube Premium for a whole year with this trick.
