PewDiePie: YouTube Red is combating ad-blockers

PewDiePie has said YouTube's new paid service, YouTube Red, is a way to combat ad-blocking.

Writing on his blog, the vlogger, aka Felix Kjellberg, suggested some software stops creators making money.

It's fairly unsurprising that Felix, who has more than 40 million subscribers and reportedly made £7.75m from his channel last year, supports the $9.99 (£6.46) a month subscription.

But he said he was worried about smaller channels.

YouTube announced its premium service on 21 October

In the blog, which he also used to remind readers about a show he's making exclusively for YouTube Red, he said a poll of his Twitter followers found 60% used AdBlocker.

It's a service blocks adverts at the start of videos.

PewDiePie also claimed his own Google statistics suggest "40% is a correct estimate" for the amount of people who watch ads on his channel.

He went on to suggest YouTube Red was created to combat the use of ad-blockers and he was concerned people with fewer viewers would struggle if the majority of users continued with the free version of the site.

"Personally, I'm OK if you use ad-block on my videos. Ads are annoying, I get it. I'm not here to complain about that," he wrote.

"But for smaller channels, this number can be devastating.

"Using Adblock doesn't mean you're clever and above the system."

Watch: Newsbeat meets PewDiePie.

PewDiePie, who has had more than 10 billion views on his channel, recently told Newsbeat he thinks people see YouTube as "something very simple" to make a living out of.

"I work a lot to get to where I am so I don't want people to just go into it and think they can do it right away," he said.

Ahead of the launch of YouTube Red, it was thought creators wouldn't be paid during a month-long trial period, but the site has assured vloggers they will get a fee.

The confusion prompted fellow vlogger Dean Dobbs to tweet Taylor Swift, asking her to have a word with YouTube following her open letter to Apple ahead of the launch of Apple Music.

Read Dean Dobb's tweet: .@taylorswift13 apparently YouTube won't be paying creators in November could you do what you did with Apple? Asking for like 100+ friends.

Not everyone is happy about YouTube Red. 16,000 people have already signed a petition against the service, which suggests it's "destroying a community".

It's not clear how much creators will get paid as part of the service but it's been reported all content will be removed from so-called "top channels" that don't sign the Red agreement.

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