This article is more than 1 year old

Google: Give us cash or we'll poke YouTube ads into your eyeballs

Chocolate Factory plans to cash in on SMUT VIDEOS

Google is planning to launch a subscription service for YouTube, offering viewers the opportunity to avoid advertisements for a monthly fee.

In an email sent to vid makers YouTube Partners by the YouTube team the Chocolate Factory's video service is set to roll out a subscription service which will offer "fans an ads-free version of YouTube for a monthly fee" despite the wide uptake of ad-blocking browser extensions which already prevent the pre-video playing of advertisements.

YouTube previously piloted a subscription scheme back in 2013.

At the time of the current scheme's launch a mere 53 channels were trialling the service, although that number has now grown to 149 and includes vid makers YouTube Partners such as “beauty breasts Tv” [sic], whose description reads:

"Welcome to the admiration channel to watch the beautiful women. We admire all what beautiful women have: the face, brasts, legs. Pls, comment culturally. Have a good fun. Channel is for adults."

When not peddling quasi-smut, YouTube is now targeting children with its advertisements too, presumably to siphon off their pocket money.

Although YouTube's revenue increased by over $1bn last year, after payments for content and payments for service upgrades the vid peddlers' bottom line has only been "roughly break-even".

Google acquired YouTube back in 2006 for $1.65bn but the service is yet to establish alternative revenue streams from advertising. The Chocolate Factory attempted to introduce a music streaming subscription service late last year, but profitability still seems a way off for YouTube as a whole. ®

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