I see a similar thing happen with npm stats occasionally, where the downloads count for popular packages will cut in half. Although I think it's just unreliable infrastructure there - it's usually back to the expected level a day or two later.
I wonder if some of Youtube's behavior was responsible for inflating the number of views.
For example, after searching on my phone, some of the videos in the search results would play silently without me selecting the video. Then, the video would show up in my history.
I also wonder if they aren't counting short (under 10 seconds) views of longer videos?
I used to watch YT pretty frequently, though I've never bothered to sign in. This is via the Roku app, as opposed to via a browser.
Starting sometime within the past month or so, they changed the interface so that instead of having many rows of suggestions, now it only has a single row, making it more work for me to find something I want to watch. As a result I watch it much less now.
Prior to this change, I was considering paying for it to skip the ads. You could argue that since I've already given them lots of info about myself (I'm watching it over GFiber after all) I may as well just sign in, but this level of intentional enshittification really rubs me the wrong way.
As a user, I noticed a drastic change around that time: Much more ads. It's come to a point wherr it's so annoying that standard doomscrolling has lost its appeal and I go do other things instead (like reading HN). Maybe others have a similar experience, which could explain things somewhat.
What counts as “a view” has pretty much never been particularly straight forward. The question is why YouTube can't just say, “Yes, in early August we made some changes to how views are counted.”
All the available evidence seems to suggest that this is an accounting change, rather than a change in viewer behavior.
This was also discussed on the most recent WAN show where they revealed a bunch of stats about views, likes, money earned per watch, and a whole bunch of other statistical analysis.
Maybe it's just me, but my recommendations have been absolutely terrible lately. I'm not getting presented with the latest videos from people I follow / watch regularly and have actually had to remember to go looking for them.
I am genuinely watching less YouTube because it's showing me less things I actually want to watch.
Monopoly in charge of the world's video content shows users what is most profitable instead of what they want to see. "Content creators" suffer as a result. Brain rot content is real, it's profitable, and it's only going to get "worse".
Does anyone remember the internet before pop-up blockers? Like, right before. It felt like the same thing to me. The internet was infested with pop-ups and becoming borderline unusable, and then comes along the pop-up blocker (and other things, but I'm simplifying here) and there was a "golden age" which is now giving way to a new wave of advertising-based atrophy. Not sure what happens next.
> On the creator dashboard it ranks views on your latest video against your last 10 videos. So when someone complains their video is 10/10, it's means that it's their worst performing recent video. 1/10 is what you aim for.
One problem is that Restricted Mode has been turned on for some users, some videos are not shown to viewers when it's turned on, and videos that are labeled as restricted are done so automatically by a faulty AI system.
You can see if restricted mode is turned on for you. Once on youtube.com, click your profile photo, and in the menu the pops down, look and see if "Restricted Mode:" is set to "On" or, "Off". Some people have found that by default it's been put to "On", even though they have not set it.
If you're not logged in, Restricted Mode is calculated by a bizarre set of rules like your not-logged-in watching history that Google totally doesn't keep track off (ie: you watch a lot of Blues Clues, you're probably a child).
Maybe because people got tired of their subscription list being randomly ordered instead of alphabetical (which has been a bug for a ridiculously long time), and have started looking elsewhere for content.
No idea here, but since we are speculating, couldn't AI search results be behind this too?
I mean, I haven't been clicking as much on video on search result pages because now they are either buried after AI summaries, or my search workflow starts off in a chat prompt somewhere where YT results are not even a thing most of the time.
This is oddly enough around the time I canceled my 10+ year premium subscription and moved to freetube. I cannot support the anti privacy crusade of asking for users government identification and i spoke with my wallet. What are the chances that enough people cancelled premium that it caused youtube to increase the amount of advertisements served? What are the odds that just drove away a bunch more people?
I have noticed a lot of channels I subscribe to don’t post nearly as often as they once had and I am not sure why. Some of them have quite a lot of subscribers and must do incredibly well, but they seem to have drifted away from regularly posting.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 53.5 ms ] threadThey have a plethora of ways to make the app and website suck for non-paying users now, including and not limited to:
* faking an interruption when starting to play
* random errors mid-play
* no longer playing on hover on-web or in-app
I've just taken that as a good signal I should read more books instead, but I imagine it kills view-counts
For example, after searching on my phone, some of the videos in the search results would play silently without me selecting the video. Then, the video would show up in my history.
I also wonder if they aren't counting short (under 10 seconds) views of longer videos?
Starting sometime within the past month or so, they changed the interface so that instead of having many rows of suggestions, now it only has a single row, making it more work for me to find something I want to watch. As a result I watch it much less now.
Prior to this change, I was considering paying for it to skip the ads. You could argue that since I've already given them lots of info about myself (I'm watching it over GFiber after all) I may as well just sign in, but this level of intentional enshittification really rubs me the wrong way.
Obligatory "YouTube is Broken" Video
https://youtu.be/q5-b7v6EIzc
All the available evidence seems to suggest that this is an accounting change, rather than a change in viewer behavior.
I am genuinely watching less YouTube because it's showing me less things I actually want to watch.
Does anyone remember the internet before pop-up blockers? Like, right before. It felt like the same thing to me. The internet was infested with pop-ups and becoming borderline unusable, and then comes along the pop-up blocker (and other things, but I'm simplifying here) and there was a "golden age" which is now giving way to a new wave of advertising-based atrophy. Not sure what happens next.
• YT right now can't compete with direct creator sponsorships, which is a huge potential revenue source they want to tap.
• This also makes YT Premium less appealing since there are still ads, though these are "skippable" in a sense.
> On the creator dashboard it ranks views on your latest video against your last 10 videos. So when someone complains their video is 10/10, it's means that it's their worst performing recent video. 1/10 is what you aim for.
You can see if restricted mode is turned on for you. Once on youtube.com, click your profile photo, and in the menu the pops down, look and see if "Restricted Mode:" is set to "On" or, "Off". Some people have found that by default it's been put to "On", even though they have not set it.
If you're not logged in, Restricted Mode is calculated by a bizarre set of rules like your not-logged-in watching history that Google totally doesn't keep track off (ie: you watch a lot of Blues Clues, you're probably a child).
- Some channels being affected more than others
- Likes remaining stable
- Revenue remaining stable
Could be explained by Youtube only counting non-adblocked views.
Perhaps an attempt to align Youtube's goals with creators' goals. If we don't get revenue then you don't either.
A lot more recommendations for videos with <100 views
One long (>20s) unskippable ad followed by another with skip button but fewer intermittent videos throughout the rest of the video
For long videos they will now roll an ad if you skip forward significantly
So they are clearly doing two things:
Pumping ads up for popular videos
Randomly sampling new videos to put in the feed
It’s an interesting exploit + explore strategy and it seems like everyone hates it
I mean, I haven't been clicking as much on video on search result pages because now they are either buried after AI summaries, or my search workflow starts off in a chat prompt somewhere where YT results are not even a thing most of the time.