Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- YouTube Premium subscribers pay for an ad-free viewing experience.
- Google is experimenting with a way for them to share ad-free videos with friends.
- Right now this is an extremely limited test, only available in select countries.
It’s a fact of modern life that much of the content we enjoy is locked behind subscription services. And while that’s fine when we’re all choosing to prioritize the subscriptions we value most, it can also make sharing stuff a little tricky — who hasn’t clicked a link from a friend at some point only to find themselves faced with a paywall? Google seems to be thinking about one way to possibly improve that kind of sharing experience, as it launches an experimental new feature for YouTube Premium.
Ads on YouTube are a hot-button topic, and while some viewers need no encouragement at all to sign up for Premium, others seem intent on doing everything in their power to avoid paying a single dime. And while they can ultimately still view videos, the ads they find themselves faced with can prove to be a major source of frustration.
Perhaps in order to show them how much nicer life can be on the other side of the Premium fence, YouTube has started a limited experiment where it’s letting some users share up to 10 ad-free videos a month (via Android Police). Their non-Premium-subscribing friends can then use these links to enjoy the same high quality, ad-free experience as paid users — just only for this single video.
The way the system works, you click on the “Share” button in YouTube like normal, but now see an option to “Share ad-free.” Every month you can generate these links for 10 videos, and then each one can be viewed ad-free up to 10 times. The system is even clever about dealing with existing subscribers, and if you accidentally share one of these links with a friend who already has Premium, their view won’t be counted against your allotment.
What’s the catch? Well, for now, availability. Google’s only testing this sharing feature in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, and even then only with a very small number of Premium subscribers. If that includes you, we’d love to hear your about your experiences down in the comments. Have your friends responded favorably, or are they still largely disinterested in Premium?
