What’s going on with Google? It’s showering Indians with gifts after gifts. Just a few days ago, I reported that India will be the first country to get the very affordable Android One smartphones. In fact, three models have already been launched, which I’ll report on soon. In another first-in-India move, Google has announced that Indians will now be able to watch YouTube videos offline. This isn’t magic. In a few weeks, Indians will be able to download YouTube content legally!
Caesar Sengupta, vice president of product management at Google (ethnicity), told The Economic Times: “YouTube is popular here. There are some videos that people watch over and over again. Wouldn’t it be great if they could watch them over and over again without paying for data and take the videos with them wherever they go?”
Expect something like this very soon (Image credit: sftcdn.net)
Also read: (Breaking News) This Monday, Google will launch Android One for $50
People from other countries are already asking: why India, why not us? In my opinion, it is because India is one of the fastest growing markets for Google and has the slowest internet connection in Asia. In some places, YouTube videos take a long time to load even at 144p. In a huge market with very low internet penetration and almost non-existent 3G connectivity (currently 4G for Indians could come from Mars), Indians are left with no choice but to use any means possible to download YouTube videos.
Let me tell you about the cost of data. Indian rupees and Philippine pesos are worth almost the same. In the Philippines, you can get unlimited 3G data for 1000 pesos or less. In India, 4GB of 3G data costs at least 1000 rupees. With a GDP per capita equivalent to that of some African countries, this cost is indeed high. The scarce data has forced Indians to spend data selectively and share those illegally downloaded videos over Bluetooth instead.
This also marks the end of the era when we used external tools to download YouTube videos. Google was probably aware of this, but never showed any intention to protect YouTube creators’ content from this piracy. Why now?
These tools no longer need to be used (Image credit: techhive.com)
Has Google simply decided to take matters into its own hands and remove these tools from the scene? But how would ads work then? Will Google add the ad to the video before it is downloaded? Will every video be available for download? Or just certain ones?
According to various reports, the download option will be available for Android smartphones and possibly tablets. Is this another provocation to jump on the Android bandwagon?
Some YouTube creators want their viewers to download and distribute their content for free, and this announcement will really boost their voices.
I spoke to someone who has built up a fairly large video collection, all of which he downloaded from YouTube. Some of them are extracted as MP3 files, others as videos. When I asked him for a reaction, he said: “Wow, this is great. Finally, downloading from YouTube is easier. Thanks, Google.”
Also read: Six cool YouTube tricks you can learn in just five minutes!
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