The Google-owned online video sharing platform started the resolution cap with some parts of Europe such as in the UK and Switzerland and but with increasing restrictions on movement due to Covid-19 extended it worldwide. While earlier even after the announcement users could manually increase the resolution to 1080 p, this option is no longer there.
In India, it seems that YouTube has started regionally focussing on metropolitan cities Delhi and Mumbai while smaller cities like Bangalore seem to be unaffected for now. The lockdown has forced millions of people to stay indoors and most companies are functioning through work from home routines. In India, this can have an impact on ISPs and the move by digital streaming companies can help in reducing Internet congestion. The restriction is also applicable to YouTube Premium users and but is not there on YouTube’s website where users can still stream in 1080 p and 4k.
Other streaming platforms Netflix, Hotstar, Amazon Prime Video, Disney + have also reduced their streaming quality in various parts of the world. Facebook also lowered streaming quality in its platform and on Instagram to avoid network congestion in Latin America and parts of Europe. Even PlayStation download has been slowed down by Sony to decrease the impact on bandwidth speed