Google Inc.’s video site YouTube is considering launching a subscription video service in the face of increased competition for original content from VoD services including Hulu and Vimeo.

The report, buried in a long piece from Variety about the increased competition for the Google-owned video giant states that “YouTube is exploring the prospect of launching its own subscription VOD service, modeled on YouTube Music Key;” that service offers unlimited, ad-free access to music videos and full access to Google’s Spotify Inc. competitor Google Play Music, for a six-month introductory price of $7.99 per month.

Putting aside the car crash, cat and all other types of compilation and cute home videos that will continue to be uploaded to YouTube, the video market has matured in 2015 where the big money, and eyeballs comes from marquee content. YouTube itself has been investing in its bigger original content creators, but upstarts such as Hulu and Vimeo, who are primarily looking at quality content over the quantity of content have the money, and desire to poach YouTube stars with better terms; YouTube without a source of subscription income struggles to compete with both the investment dollars needed up front to assist in the production of these shows, through to the returns from them once they’re up.

Yes: YouTube stars are reported to make million from advertising, but video advertising is suffering the same pressures the broader advertising market are: still plenty of money around, but ever declining returns for the content provider due to an ever increasing glut in available inventory.

Is home grown talent enough though?

Comparing YouTube to Hulu is nearly an apples and oranges comparison; sure Hulu is getting into more original content, including poaching YouTube stars, but Hulu offers an additional value proposition via way of its content from major television networks.

Are the likes of PewPewDie (over 35 million subscribers) and other YouTube’s stars enough to get people to pay say $7.99 a month to watch? or is it more likely that YouTube would look to additional content, say acquire a back catalog of television shows and movies ala Amazon Prime and Netflix to justify the cost?

Could YouTube bundle the subscription service with Music Key and Google Play in a mega all you can eat bundle, and if it did, how could they keep the subscription cost down? A mega subscription of Google services could have some appeal, but again, at what cost would it sell?

Time will tell what Google’s plans are, but in this market there’s a very good chance they’ll launch something sooner rather than later.

Image credit: YouTube/ OMG Cat.