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That's not correct.4k is available for free users. https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/17/youtube-ends-the-test-aski...

Didn't know this! It never defaults to 4k for me anymore so I assumed the need to pay for premium was still a thing.

YT will default to the lowest resolution it can get away with without you noticing, usually 720p

This is also false. Mine defaults to 1440p on Web if the video has it, if not, 1080p which most videos have. On mobile you can set a Quality vs Performance default in settings, or just leave it on Auto. For videos with 4k, it will sometimes try to play those as well without me asking (but I always turn it down to 1440p because my fans go crazy.)

If you have crappy internet, yes it will give you lower resolution as the resolution is dynamically adjusted unless you specify otherwise.

There's so much FUD out there now that it's cool to hate on Google.

My connection doesn't suck. It's 1 gigabit down, and the same service I had back when YouTube seemed gung ho on defaulting to hi-res video for me. I suppose it's always possible that an ISP could throttle connections to YT. Judging how fast torrents download for me, there's no good reason why bandwidth in and of itself would cause YouTube to only load up to 1080p for me (though often 720p) unless I force it to use a higher res.

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