Update: November 5, 2020 (9:00 p.m. ET): Android police reports that mobile YouTube users in India can now again stream videos with a resolution of 720p, 1080p and even 2K. In the past this was only possible via WLAN, now also via cellular connections. In other words, no matter how you watch YouTube on your phone in India, you are no longer tied to 480p.
Original article: Mar. 24, 2020 (12:20 p.m. ET): Concerned that the soaring internet traffic won’t be overloaded during the coronavirus outbreak, Google is making some changes to YouTube. Starting today, the video streaming service will reduce the default streaming quality setting to the standard definition (480p) for at least one month.
Bloomberg According to a company spokesman, Google has seen a lot of traffic on YouTube all day since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis and not just traffic peaks in the evening. This, of course, is due to the fact that many people are either working from home or simply stuck in the house due to government requests to keep them at home. YouTube had previously announced that it would reduce the quality of video streaming to Europe together with Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney Plus. Now it goes into effect for everyone.
Google doesn’t think that with the increased use of streaming services like YouTube, the world is at risk of truly breaking the internet. However, it made the decision to reset the default to SD resolution, both out of caution and because of concerns from some government officials.