Curses! Youtube trying pay-per-view model

[Ben Lahnger]

YouTube is betatesting a pay-to-view video rental system and is looking for contributors who want people to pay for watching their contributions. I can understand YouTube trying to increase their profitibility, but they already have introduced banner advertising and YouTube content quality only seems worthy of free viewing. I'm thinking of protesting this.

http://www.youtube.com/t/youtube_rentals

[FlowerGirl]

"Would you pay for YouTube?"
"No."

[Raza]

Blech, commercialism.

At a quick glance I'd say this shouldn't affect youtube's current function much, though. Pay-to-view videos won't get watched unless they start out with a name for themselves, which is not the standard for current youtube content; I'd guess they're hoping to attract a more professional audience by providing a big-name centralised digital pay-view service, maybe becoming an intellectual-property-legit source of copyrighted video entertainment. Services like this tend to stay unpopular on the internet when they aren't either inescapably tied to some electronic gadget like Itunes or providing de-rationalizing content such as pornography because thankfully, everything remotely popular is available for free somewhere else. Still, this can't exactly cost much to implement and maintain from their current position, so even a small customer base of the most bourgeois of internet users might run them a profit.

[Saya]

pfft, why pay for it when its for free on youtube? Well, I can see this working with rare films, but not much else.

[Anarasha]

Paying for Youtube? No thanks, other sites are out there.