YouTube Debuts Canadian Rental Service
- First Posted: Sep 01 2011 09:22 AM
The world's greatest time-waster joins the the iTunes Store and Netflix in the growing over-the-top sector.
Google-owned YouTube launched a streaming-video rental service in Canada last night, becoming the latest over-the-top service to take aim at Netflix. YouTube will charge $4.99 for new releases, $3.99 for classics, and some will even be free. Users will have between 24 and 48 hours to watch the flicks before they're “returned” to YouTube. A quick scan through YouTube.com/Movies shows that their selection already seems to be better than what's available on Netflix, with most major Hollywood new releases (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Pt. 1, Paul, Arthur) all available. Plus, you can watch Robert Rodriguez's classic El Mariachi and Fritz Lang's M for free, so, yeah, kudos. (Also: The Birth of a Nation and a bunch of B-film erotica, but we can overlook that.) Granted, Netflix is still a fair bit cheaper (monthly subscription rates start at just $7.99 a month, the same as what two classic rentals on YouTube would cost), but far be it from us to complain about some healthy competition in the over-the-top market.
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