YouTube Premium starts testing Twitch-like feature in select countries

YouTube is trying to convince people to subscribe to its premium service by offering them some free perks. Although YouTube Premium and Twitch are two different type of services they have a couple of traits in common. Recognizing the opportunity to increase its subscriber pool, Google has decided to trial a feature that's successfully used by Twitch for quite some time.

Starting this week, users in five countries can get a free channel membership every month when they subscribe to YouTube Premium. It's exactly what you get on Twitch if you're an Amazon Prime subscriber.

According to 9to5Google, YouTube Premium users in Brazil, Ireland, Japan, South Korea, and the United Kingdom will receive one free channel membership every month. However, this seems to be a “limited time offer” that will expire on May 31. The good news is the offer is already available in those five countries, so if you want to support your favorite streamer, now would be a good time to use that YouTube Premium subscription.

When YouTube Premium will make the offer standard, you'll have to choose who to support every month with your free channel membership since the subscription is non-recurrent. To support your favorite YouTube channel using the new feature, simply choose to “Join” and you should see an option to “Join for free.” If the option is not yet available, it means you're not eligible for the offer.

Creators supported with these free channel membership will receive the same amount as they would get if users would pay the usual $5 monthly subscription.