A collection of YouTube’s content makers were chosen to trial paid-for subscriptions for his or her channels as portion of a pilot scheme.

Subsciptions for the 53 niche channels, such as National Geographic for youths, will start at $0.99 (£0.64) per 30 days with a free two week trial. Users would be capable of pay using a mastercard or through Google Wallet.

Stuart Fuller, director of business operations and communications at online brand protection specialists NetNames, said this can be a move to fight off rivals, ensure brands can properly monetise and stop piracy.

“The growing acclaim for on-demand video channels reminiscent of those offered by Netflix, Hulu and LoveFilm has ended in many users abandoning YouTube in favour of more streamlined and up-to-date services which supply a greater range of movies, TV series and one-off shows,” he said. “Google will intend to higher control content this is uploaded directly to YouTube through such pay models, and hence avoiding painful and dear task of taking down pirated content online.

“Consumers might want to start being used to this sort of online models, as  big ‘social’ brands and platforms cannot simply generate income from selling advertising alone. Subscription models are just set to become increasingly more common in future.”

According to YouTube, 25 per cent of world YouTube views come from mobile devices and 1bn views an afternoon on YouTube mobile. We’ve reached out to YouTube to determine how subscriptions will work on mobile.