YouTube Go was launched in 2016, when Google wanted low-end devices to run the popular streaming app without commenting, creating content, or switching to dark mode. It was also targeted at markets like India where connectivity posed a challenge.
And now that comments have become an integral part of YouTube, the platform thinks it’s time to shut down its Go version for users.
The second main reason behind the launch of YouTube Go was to help people avoid spending a lot of data, which used to be a lot with video streaming. Data used to be very expensive during that time. But YouTube says it has started tweaking the main app to make it usable on entry-level smartphones available in the market.
Since all those issues are gone, it makes sense to shut down YouTube Go and focus on keeping the main app stable and further improving its performance.
The YouTube Go app is also part of the Android Go ecosystem, and since YouTube hasn’t talked about that aspect of the Go app, it will be interesting to see if Android Go smartphones will continue to get the version after August this year.
The Android Go platform was created so that you can have smartphones with 1GB or 2GB of RAM, which has become a rarity these days. The software was also tuned to run lightweight apps that don’t take up a lot of space on you.
