A Paywall for YouTube? It May Be Coming Soon.

Perhaps the greatest allure of YouTube is the ability to, at pretty much any given time, pull out a mobile device and start enjoying video, largely without regard to location or circumstances.

A short five-minute video can be had at most any time to make a user laugh, cry, jump, or even learn something. But now, reports suggest that some parts of YouTube may be poised to get a new impediment to that rapid development: a paywall.

The good news here is that the paywall is set to be limited in nature, limited to high-end YouTube personae who have huge followings and swing wide influence. Said YouTubers will be permitted to put some content behind that paywall, and charge admission accordingly.

Better yet, reports suggest, the actual amount of content behind a paywall will be extraordinarily limited, and most YouTube viewers won’t actually notice a difference. What’s more, it seems video creators will have something of a choice at hand; those who bring in money from advertising will be required to list videos outside of the paywall, so it seems there will be no double-dipping, and videomakers will have to choose ad support or a straight paywall.

This isn’t a sudden development, either; back in 2014, YouTube—particularly its CEO Susan Wojcicki—had been looking into means to bring in funding and improve monetization for some time, and that was back over a year ago.

Wojcicki began to wonder if there were ways to help improve the content going into YouTube; there was no shortage of content, after all, but there was room for improvement in longer runtimes, expanded types of content, and similar matters, matters that all required resources to conduct. Even with this plan now publicly noted, there’s likely not going to be any changes made until sometime next year, though the paywall itself may actually be up by the end of the month.

It is the latest version of a conundrum whose origins go back centuries. People want to make art, and write books, and all like this—YouTube videos are just the latest such incarnation—but people must also pay rent and buy groceries, and as such, need a way to profit from that art.

That’s not always easy to do—for many it’s not even possible—so it limits the amount of material that’s on hand. If there’s a way for those artists to make sufficient profit to live upon, it generally results in the creation of more content, or even better content, as the creator doesn’t have to sink a third of a day or more into a day job. But trying to get that money out of art consumers, whose wallets are already strapped by those grocery-buying, rent-paying activities, is a difficult proposition.

Advertising tends to step in here and offer a new option, but advertising demands high value, with tracking activities and data mining and a host of other points alongside of low payment overall. That leaves creators looking for new ways to make the necessary income to continue making content, and makes paywalls so attractive.

Still, it also leaves the potential for losses, as many users won’t make the necessary leap to a paywall. YouTube’s plan could be a very effective one, but it may leave some of the biggest names in YouTube vulnerable to lesser competitors.