While YouTube never made an official announcement, the platform confirmed the end of the experiment in a tweet. Specifically, a reply to a reply to its own tweet. The entire thread is a little strange, but at least there is a tangible takeaway from it all.
— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) October 17, 2022 It’s worth iterating though that the platform never made clear the number of people that were involved in the experiment. That, and the company hasn’t announced what it learned from it. For most people, it was taken as a sign of what is to come, though it can only be considered fortunate that it didn’t turn out that way. Those who were already paying for premium were the least affected, if affected at all. YouTube has done a number of what it calls experiments over the past few years. Some of which it has reversed, like this one. Others, like the removal of the public dislike count, has been forced through despite massive backlash. So while this experiment has been turned off for now, it’s entirely possible that it will get rolled out later anyway. [Photo: SAM-RIZ44/Pixabay]Considering the competition, it makes some business sense to lock 4K behind a paywall. Competing video streaming sites often do, locking the resolution behind higher subscription tiers. Though one major distinction is that YouTube serves primarily user-created content, and locking 4K resolution of such videos make a lot less sense, especially as it was free before. (Source: YouTube / Twitter)
