First desktop, now Youtube goes offline. Youtube with number of Youtube channels unveiled program that allow users to download Youtube videos ‘legally’. It doesn’t come free though, where small fee required via Google Checkout.

A quick look on the mention partners no longer showing the purchase link (does it shows only to US visitors?) although you can see the screen shot here. Youtube, currently ranks 3rd on Alexa rank, is Google’s most prized asset and only ranks behind itself and Yahoo. Monetizing this traffic wasn’t easy , and this download program comes after Adsense for videos introduced last year.

Quick question popped out in my head.. Will this ‘pay-for-download’ works when Youtube videos can be downloaded using 3rd party tools (such as Real Player add-on plugin for Firefox) all this while? Perhaps not  for fun, jokes or nonsense videos.

However, the are possibly market for peoples/organizations that looking to have the copyrighted videos legally.  Apart from that, some of  the initial channels joined this program  comes from higher learning institution that provide lecturer and research videos.

The blog post announcing this plan received mixed response (more negative than the positive comments), although it is not fair to judge if this is not going to work based on that.  But would you download something that you can get for free?