Why YouTube stopped asking you to upgrade to Premium to play 4K videos

YouTube has turned off its experiment to have only Premium subscription viewers play videos in 4K quality.

The online video-sharing platform has stopped requiring premium subscription to play videos in 4K quality.

we've fully turned off this experiment. viewers should now be able to access 4K quality resolutions without Premium membership. we're here if you have other q's

— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) October 17, 2022

YouTube has been pushing to have viewers upgrade to their premium tier.

Earlier this month YouTube attempted to motivate viewers to upgrade their tier to premium in order to watch in 4K.

The apparent experiment appears to have been a fail as the viewing service has dropped it’s initial mission.

The paid subscription has some benefits like song downloads for offline playback and ad-free viewing.

Unable to play 4k videos

Viewers who have in the past been unable to select the 2160p option due to their region or network range, are advised to set the video quality to auto or low resolution.

Different regions have been impacted by poor reception issues which affect some viewer video quality.

The video sharing platform does offer some reward for migrating to their higher tier, 4K Plus.

How to enable 4K on YouTube app?

Allow videos to load, tap the ellipsis menu in the the top right corner to pull up a number of options.

Select quality option and toggle to 2160p or 2160p HDR settings.

4K Plus

An add-0n from YouTube 4K Plus lets viewers add extra viewing options to YouTube’s TV base plan.

Users can unlock 4k ultra high definition playback for certain live and on demand programs on YouTube TV.

Viewers can also stream unlimited content at home and on YouTube’s mobile app to watch offline.

Here’s what you get with 4K Plus

• 4K content available.
• Unlimited streams
• the ability to view DVR recordings offline.

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