A lot of Youtube channels are reporting declining viewership lately.
EX1: https://youtube.com/watch?v=cpVnx4_yqTo
EX2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF0tmhEtVJE
Fun times. Looks like a lot of channels are seeing a decline not just Linus. Hes just the latest to talk about it.
Then I saw this article as well and thought I would share.
Anyone here youtube creators? Are you seeing the same thing, a general downturn in viewership?
Everyone here is speculating about their content, but the simple answer is YouTube just changed how they count the view number. The change basically happened overnight, so it’s not some slow attrition of views. They said in the WAN Show that while the view count halved, the number of likes hasn’t changed (the view/like ratio doubled), and the revenue they earned hasn’t changed (CPM doubled). All of this points that the same number of humans are watching, but what counts as a view in the “views” number just changed.
Could back up that theory that it’s autoplay views being reduced and they are not worth much anyway
How does that even work? If someone viewed the video then they viewed the video. Are they simply not counting people who basically clicked by accident or who only watched the first 30sec before deciding that they didn’t actually want to watch the video?
Even before this drop in views, the rule was you have to watch a video for at least 30 seconds before it counts as a view, as a way to combat clickbait where people instantly bounce from a video. Maybe they have changed this further? Or they change some kind of bot detection?
I wonder if it has something to do with how they count users with ad blockers.
It could even be something “innocent” about how ad-blockers have started to interact with the site as YouTube ramps up their anti-adblock measures and the ad-blockers have to change how they work. Like maybe the ad-blockers have started blocking the JavaScript callback that logs the views.
thats probably it, the influencers always remind people adblocking or not subscribing hurts thier channel. plus if your adblocking you arnt exposed to multiple ads in a single video.
wonder how google is considering what count as a view? you have to watch it a certain number of minutes? you must be exposed to ads for X amount of time?
*the view/ like ratio
doubledhalvedThe views halved, the likes stayed the same. So the ratio of likes to views is now higher.
Yes, likes/views is higher but you originally said views/likes is higher.
Folks here are missing the point blaming LTT for the drop. This has been a sudden drop, too sudden to be fatigue or audience tastes changing.
Also I can see the same on my own channel. About 2 weeks ago views suddenly dropped to a third of the usual views. And even high performing videos have had trouble getting views since. Even videos with a high impression percentage are getting lower than average views.
The same wsd also reported by Second Wind (old Zero Punctuation) and their experience is the same: way too sudden drop to be anything else except YouTube adjusting their algorithm.
The same wsd also reported by Second Wind (old Zero Punctuation) and their experience is the same: way too sudden drop to be anything else except YouTube adjusting their algorithm.
In their video, Yahtzee said it could be related to Restricted Mode on youtube suddenly turns on by itself. Or at least that’s their hypothesis, since they checked that if that mode is on, a lot of their videos vanished from their channel.
They’re wrong, my channel has under 4% viewers in the up to 18 year segment, this effect is way bigger than if I lost then completely. Also my channel features no swearing or inappropriate content so, it should not affect it at all if this was the case.
It’s not about what your viewers are, it’s about what youtube now automatically hides by default. They show it in the video.
Yes, but even if they hid everything I have from teens and suspended teens, the drop would be way less. And that’s why I think they are wrong about the reason for the drop.
Tierzoos theory is because formats that were good for the past years (8-10 min videos) are less popular now with the advent of shorts. And people are watching yt on their TVs now.
Demographics are also changing. Wish there were more actual data. Other than the very end result which is views down over many channels all at once.
That also wouldn’t have a drastic immediate effect. On the long term this is likely to eat some views of long form content.
Thanks for the analysis. I’ve got to say. We on Lemmy can be vicious.
Yeah, it’s easy to bark at influencer we don’t like.
I think his org has consistently done its best and I still tune in across the channels. I know that I couldn’t do better with matched resources, without experience and a lot more considerations.
Listening to everyone hate on a whole media group puzzles me a bit.
LTT has done bad things and never apologized. For example he copied a gamersnexus script and never acknowledged it.
Never acknowledged it? He immediately put a pinned comment attributing Gamers Nexus when notified of it, and GN thanked him for it, which any reasonable person would take as him being happy with the resolution.
It was a piece of info from GN’s video, not a copied script though.
And stole an item to auction off! I can’t believe people here defend their ass D:
Which turned out to be false, and Billet Labs confirmed it was always the agreement that they were not supposed to return it, they just changed their mind later when it was already too late.
I wonder what they’re going to prioritize now
I‘ve noticed the algorithm drizzles a good portion of smaller creators on my front page in recent months and that part is growing. I am talking about videos with just a few thousand or few hundred views that make up roughly 10-15 percent of my recommendations or so.
I think Youtube is diversifying exposure so you don‘t see the same faces you‘ve seen the past 15 years as often and new channels get a chance to grow. I am guessing Youtube doesn‘t want to be too dependent on the same huge channels anymore either.
Of course that means huge creators are calling to the pitch forks and torches because they lose revenue but why should I care? Most of them are rich anyway and don‘t necessarily produce better videos than someone with their phone in their garage workshop or a bunch of college students in their dorms. If anything it feels more like the old Youtube again.
There is a lot wrong with Youtube but I couldn‘t care less about huge channels being forced to slim down or try harder.
I’ve been getting recommendations for videos with 2 to 10 views. Noticed it about three months ago.
Same. I kinda like it.
I’m noticing a lot more ai generated videos myself. Or at least they look like it. Its kinda slop.
Noticed those as well.
Usually the side bar recommends the usual bunch or related content but then there is this totally random video of some small channel with 10 maybe <1000 views doing a let’s play or some random content which is completely unrelated to the content I watching at the moment.Most of them are rich anyway and don‘t necessarily produce better videos than someone with their phone in their garage workshop or a bunch of college students in their dorms. If anything it feels more like the old Youtube again.
In the case of LTT: Not everyone can absorb the cash flow for an ULTIMATE PETABYTE MULTI-NODE STORAGE SERVER BUILD.
I honestly enjoy those as uneducated as some videos are, those infrastructure videos are really enjoyable for the amount of jank.mr beast has always been shady asf, thats why hes desperate as in the type of content he puts out, eventhough he has huge a base and his shitty food company. Like he wants to make a big deal out "paying the " wrestler that got knocked out by an aggressive MMA person. hes like a vulture.
AI slop most likely. Well, to be serious, I think the drop is due to them trying to fight AI slop and miserably failing.
yes, ive seen an increase in AI slop + propaganda too, and yt also is allow ISRAEL to make pro-IDF propaganda to flood the site now. 45million$ contract from NETANYAHU.
AI slop trailers, AI bizarre animal injures, GOOGLE veo AI videos.
I hope anything but LTT, a shit clickbait channel that steals things to auction off
If a change in the algorithm hurts, it may be a sign that the algorithm had been helping previously. No one questions the algorithm when viewership grows, but it’s largely to blame for the good and the bad.
True, but a platform where your income is dependent on an ever changing algorithm is not something a business can handle. Changes like that will drive away major channels and make them start to look for alternatives.
youtube is probably gearing the algorithim for other content than influencers that draws in more views or revenue.
Not impossible. The best revenue for Google would be if they could ai generate all the content themselves.
I stopped watching LTT years ago. His channel is crap. He’s a tech personality who seems to barely understand technology, so most of his videos are just over the top bullshit and stunts. Not to mention his awful annoying vocal fry. He’s like the male Fran Drescher.
Plus, Linus has been a complete asshole to GamersNexus, one of the best channels for investigative journalism in tech. As far as I’m concerned, Linus is your typical business entity, and lacking ethics.
His complete lack of self awareness and ability to own up and apologise when they’ve dropped the ball put me off the channel entirely. For example they found out one of their main sponsors Honey were scamming their viewers and essentially stealing from people, they just kept it quiet rather than owning it.
That, and Emily was the best thing about the channel and she left so…
About Honey, they didn’t find out that Honey was scamming viewers until everyone else did.
What they found out earlier, at the same time as many other youtubers, was that Honey was “scamming” the youtubers themselves by replacing the youtubers reference codes.
At the time they thought the viewers still got discounts, so they didn’t announce anything about it since it would seem like they asked the viewers not to take the discounts so that LTT could make more money.
For example they found out one of their main sponsors Honey were scamming their viewers and essentially stealing from people, they just kept it quiet rather than owning it.
That’s one of the things I was referring to. GamersNexus did an expose on the Honey thing and filed a class action suit over it because they were essentially stealing money from creators. Linus was complicit and aware and said nothing.
Let’s also not forget the time Linus literally received a prototype cooler from Billet Labs for testing, was supposed to return it after review, and he not only reviewed it poorly (and used it for the wrong hardware), but then basically stole it and auctioned it off, later referring to this as “a small mistake.” Supposedly he only offered to pay for the prototype after this was also exposed by GN.
Billet Labs’ statement on the issue:
You, the PC community, are amazing. We’d like to thank you for your support, it means more than you can imagine.
Steve at Gamers Nexus has publicly shown his integrity, at the huge risk of backlash, and we have nothing but respect for him for how he’s handled himself, both publicly and when speaking directly to us.
…
Regarding LTT, we are simply going to state the relevant facts:
On 10th August, we were told by LTT via email that the block had been sold at auction. There was no apology.
We replied on 10th August within 30 minutes, telling LTT that this wasn’t okay, and that this was a £XXXX prototype, and we asked if they planned to reimburse us at all.
We received no reply and no offer of payment until 2 hours after the Gamers Nexus video went live on 14th August, at which point Linus himself emailed us directly.
The exact monetary value of the prototype was offered as reimbursement. We have not received, nor have we asked for any other form of compensation.
Dude’s just scummy. I’ve no idea why people will defend him to the ends of the earth.
About the Billet Labs thing, they have shown, and Billet Labs verified it, that the original agreement was that LTT would keep the cooler.
It was only after the bad review they asked for it back, and at that point there was miss communication between the person Billet Labs talked to and the logistics department at LTT, so the cooler wasn’t set aside as it should.
About the Billet Labs thing, they have shown, and Billet Labs verified it, that the original agreement was that LTT would keep the cooler.
Shown where? I’ve seen no evidence of that anywhere, and I was following that controversy when it happened.
Here is the post from Billet Labs themselves where they verify that they only asked for the cooler back after the video had been released: https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/18d6m3u/deleted_by_user/kcfmcnz/
Now, i’m not saying that LTT didn’t do Billet Lbs dirty in regards to this whole situation.
They did not test the cooler correctly, and Linus was less than resonable in regards to retesting and such (something he has adressed himself here: https://linustechtips.com/topic/1526180-gamers-nexus-alleges-lmg-has-insufficient-ethics-and-integrity/page/16/#comment-16078641 ).
But people keep hanging up that they sold when they were supposed to send it back, when there was no such agreement beforehand.
Thanks for that. Not entirely as bad as originally indicated, but still pretty shady on LTT’s part
With everything I know of it, Linus was just rug-sweeping it before the exposé. Feels like Billet Labs got screwed but took the high road to prevent drama because LTT has a big community.
And the Honey thing turned out to be a dud, the accusations false, and the lawsuit went nowhere. So good on them not to jump on the lawsuit train I guess.
Oh Linus is a giant child.
He once got pissed off, because they got called out by an actual scientist. They were creating videos promoting fake products. Then they played victim and pushed it instead of, ya know, taking the high road.
It’s actually worse than that.
He does know some stuff about technology and his team knows the stuff that he maybe doesn’t know.
But in the fight with GamersNexus Linus basically admitted that they don’t have time to properly fact check stuff because they would make less money if they released less videos.
That’s from way back when. They shut production for a week, reassessed how they make things, and came back with the promise to be more thorough and not release a video when it’s just not done that day. And they have “missed” some days since.
he rubbed me the wrong way when he created drama with employees like last year. fans/people were being sexist towards a female employee how she wasnt in tech, and she should do anything on the "show.
its that Nasal voice right? like lois from family guy
Hes an emotionally stunted 13 year old, that thinks its funny to keep dropping/breaking things that most normal people could never afford to even touch, who is quick to criticize the wrongs of everyone else, but acts like a goddamn martyr as soon as you criticize him and his behavior.
his response to GamersNexus “being mean” by reporting facts backed up by receipts and evidence is only the tip of the iceberg.
I never watched that channel very much, but in the several videos I’ve seen (maybe 10-12 total?), he seemed to know exactly what he was talking about.
I’d be interested in hearing what specific complaints technical experts have with the channel.
I agree with most of your points, but vocal fry?!
That’s such an asinine thing to care about.
Probably doesn’t help that a bunch of the decent channels were bought by private equity and are now churning out boring, safe and uninteresting content.
https://youtu.be/hJ-rRXWhElI (a yt link, lol).
A brief summary from https://www.dailydot.com/news/youtube-channel-private-equity/
Some channels like Donut Media, Veritasium, and Task and Purpose have been acquired publicly. Others, such as Dude Perfect and Coco Melon, have been acquired more privately, with no public disclosure.
Plenty others. A key giveaway is when a channel diverges their risk. When the front man who is the reason you have watched the channel suddenly has co-hosts and large segments from other channels in their regular content.
Oh, so that is why Veritasium went to shit. That’s such a shame. It was a great channel that I was excited about when a new video would drop. Then low quality videos started coming out and I don’t watch them anymore. Haven’t unsubscribe yet though, maybe I should get around to that.
What is it you don’t like about Veritasium lately?
Honestly The PFAS and Monsanto videos were quite good in my opinion.
Ugh yeah and they had to interview the owner of Noah’s Arcade and he did an awful rap
I have definitely unsubscribed from some big channels that I used to watch routinely, and simply often don’t click on videos from channels I haven’t yet unsubscribed from. It’s just not interesting stuff. It’s filler crap. thankfully it seems like there are enough smaller channels to fill that space, including some of the people originally from those other ones (like speed and donut)
Linus Tech Tips is not one of them though. They did receive an offer for $100 million, but refused it to keep their independence.
But if less people are watching the other big channels because the content quality has slipped, then there is less people spending less time on the platform, so less non-subscribers that might be recommended an LTT video.
What would make me really happy is if viewership across YouTube entirely was down because people were getting fed up with YouTube and shifting to alternatives.
The problem is that there aren’t any really viable alternatives. YouTube has three major advantages and all three are necessary. First and most critically it has a viable business model (that is it has a way to earn money to pay creators). It’s a shitty business model, but it is viable which already puts it ahead of most services that are coasting on VC funds and hoping they’ll trip over a business model before they go bankrupt. Second it has the infrastructure and capital to actually serve content. Running a video streaming service is the single largest bandwidth consumer you could possibly come up with and that means considerable network infrastructure costs, to say nothing of the storage demands. Third it has network effect going for it. Nobody is going to watch videos on your platform if there’s only a couple dozen of them total. The sheer size and scope of YouTube means no matter what you’re looking for you can find something to watch. It’s a one stop shop for AV content.
Every single competitor to YouTube has failed on one of those points, usually the first one, rarely the second. The last service I saw come close to hitting all three was Vimeo, but it flamed out not even a decade after it launched. Twitch.tv is struggling to make their accounting work and isn’t even a direct competitor because they’re pushing hard for live streams as opposed to pre-recorded videos. Alternatives like PeerTube have no business model and will never attract creators or a mainstream audience. Paid hosting platforms like Floatplane are replacements for traditional video streaming services like Amazon Video or Netflix not really platforms where just anybody can set up a channel and start posting videos.
To paraphrase a famous saying, YouTube is the worst public video streaming service except for every other one. Until someone comes along and figures out how to make enough money to reliably pay creators and has enough capital to actually serve that content reliably and in high quality YouTube isn’t going anywhere.
I wanna like Peertube as an alternative, but I can’t find any content I like there. And the app is so awkward to use.
PeerTube would be great if you didn’t have to self-host. And yes, I mean that. Every instance I’ve found that allows user uploads charges the users for bandwidth (or charges a subscription fee). I’ve never found an instance yet that works like Dailymotion or YouTube. When we get a big instance (like mastodon.social or one of the big two Lemmy instances), that allows user uploads freely and seamlessly, we’ll start seeing it grow.
There are quite a few that allow uploads without charges or subs. But not if you start now, right now because costs have risen so much you cannot possibly cover them if someone comes in and uploads 20 or so high quality high bandwidth sucking videos because well, there isnt really the audience and the money is basically lost… and as said that is where we are. Doesn’t help they only really use h.264 and don’t get ad revenue. Creators have zero interest in making a video if they don’t get something back, either in plenty of views or some income which currently, to be brutal, they have zero chance of achieving on peertube compared to youtube
I use Odysee and Peertube where possible but yeah they’re somewhat awkward, and the biggest thing I typically miss is the comments. As awful as most Youtube comments are, the critical mass is there, if you’re looking for a quick link to something in the video, the summary that the author should’ve included but didn’t, the correction where the author was wrong, or something else of actual value, chances are whatever it is you’re trying to find somewhere on the top heap of Youtube comments. As with most social media, the value is not in the service itself, it’s in the community. Steering that community towards somewhere where it will actually be appreciated is a herculean task when someone has to be the pioneers and live in that desert and put in the work to prepare it for the ones who will come after them.
I glanced at odysee and noped out the second the front page I was looking at was full of trump racist propaganda
Yes, until we bring the light of civilization, it will be the wild west and the natives are trying to kill us.
As much as I do complain about Peertube, I do like how it’s like the old personal blog days. Just kinda quietly do your own thing. I’m actually thinking of starting a channel to teach Japanese. I’ll probably have a few lines of my diary and break down the vocabulary and grammar in English and French. It’s like shit nobody would give a crap about, but it’ll get me to keep up with my diary and maybe someone will find the info useful, which I think the earlier days of personal websites and blogs were like.
That sounds like a great idea. I think the independence of the old web is something we should aspire to, it’s a big part of what gave the internet its soul, and that’s what big tech has suffocated with ads and monetization and platform-control.
Third it has network effect going for it. Nobody is going to watch videos on your platform if there’s only a couple dozen of them total. The sheer size and scope of YouTube means no matter what you’re looking for you can find something to watch.
Yeah, though I think that you could avoid some of that with a good cross-video-hosting service search engine, as I don’t think that most people are engaging in the social media aspect of YouTube. YouTube doesn’t have a monopoly on indexing YouTube videos.
But the scale doesn’t hurt them, that’s for sure.
Honestly, YouTube is the “least bad” of most commercial social media.
If people go to Twitter or Discord or whatever instead, that would be awful.
youtube is already replacing it with AI slop, and propaganda. they increased it. thats where the money is, other than getting it from the major television networks.
i think history buff channels were calling out there were clones of his channel in AI form.
Maybe at some point we can all stop watching and hence supporting YouTube, that’d be nice.
Users stop watching on Youtube to go watch on Tiktok. I can’t see that as a win.
Perhaps the lesser of the two evils, considering Google’s dominance. But yes, far from ideal.
well google/YT is enshittifying themselves with AI and propaganda push, so it will be soon.
Or if you use adblock and stream at 4k, google will lose money when you watch videos. Free content while fucking google over is a win win in my book.
Because people wont stay 14 to 16 year olds for long
I used to watch LTT all the time. I stopped watching some years back after he installed a six figure Wi-Fi system on his “estate.” I had enjoyed watching a relatable everyman review computer hardware, and more often than not break things. I didn’t sign up to watch a millionaire dick around with exotic tech in his McMansion.
Doesn’t help he has actually gotten dumber over the years.
He very clearly has fallen out of touch and basically is just a personality at this point.
So your not even watching a tech enthusiast millionaire dick around with things.
Your just watching a rich white dude dick around with tech and his company.
I always hated his "oh no i hope i don’t drop this expensive thing that you peasants can hardly afford… Oh i dropped it’ schtick. People cheered him on like aome village idiot. At some point he said he feels like he’s pushing expensive unnecessary stuff to people who can hardly afford it and he wants to stop doing it. But he never did. He’s doing tech reviews and i assume a podcast, because everyone has a podcast, and his studio is ABSURD. I watched some other video where they needed something from the LTT studio and they even commented on how fucking big his operation is. He had rooms there he didn’t even know existed. I stick to the opinion that he’s just a slimy rick man, nothing else.
last i heard his company is worth 10+million, yea hes definitely just sitting back and not really advancing his channel/.
It’s a business with over 100 employees, if it wasn’t huge where would the employees be? His dropping thing always existed, he just got rich in the meantime.
Would it be any better if he’s black?
Why racially profile if it doesnt matter?Edit: I like how I am getting downvoted for asking why the mentioned skin color is of any importance.
If a dude or dudette is a rich asshole it doesnt matter if they are yellow, white, black or green. Asshole stays asshole.sounds like he got Lazy and just let his, lower- level plebs manage the channels where he just comes in and “promote” product and leaves kind of person. i was subscribed to another channel that did that, they just wanted to “not be present” while channel is declining because its still doing well, now its not doing well(they had several issue arise that caused it.) no interest in change with the times.
I just wired my house for Ethernet for a a few thousand dollars of electrician time. It’s multiple times faster than any WiFi can be. Why would anyone drop $100k on wifi??
Oh dude. The next drop. DIY it. It’s easier than you think. Even the cheap keystone punch tools will get the job done.
Google is making users/consumers not want to use/consume google things by making those things more difficult, more invasive, less user friendly to use/consume.
That’s it. That’s all.
If I just want to watch a clip that I could before but now I have to sign in because it thinks I’m a not, NO
If it wants me to watch ads for things I’ll never buy and actually forces me to, NO.
If it kills the front ends I prefer to use, or kills the ability to watch via proxy, for my privacy and/or security. NO.
If it feeds me Nazi shit without clicking a single link on a new install on a new browser with no profile on a new IP, fucking NO.
I stopped watching LTT videos when they just became long-form ads. Or when everyone five minutes was a sponsored segment.
I’m sure declining viewers has nothing to do with the various controversies such as auctioning off prototypes, rushed reviews with misleading or false conclusions, mistreating staff etc. Channels like Gamers Nexus really laid into him.
That’s was months ago though, and the drop is recent. Why would people leave months after the controversies happened?
It’s also suddenly happening to most large YouTubers at the same time, so doesn’t seem related to any of them in particular.
He will look for answers literally anywhere, except for within.
The tech scene is just not as interesting anymore, and the stuff he specifically covers is even less interesting. But the bigger issue is that everything LMG do is just corporate jank. It was fun when it was home garage jank, with 2 employees, but now it’s just miserable and frustrating. And thats not even taking any of the interpersonal issues, or legal drama from recent history
Why is Yahtzee complaining about the same issue? He does games, not tech: https://youtu.be/cpVnx4_yqTo
Tbf games content is also saturated af.
I never considered that the tech scene isn’t interesting anymore, but you’re right. Everything is boring incremental upgrades these days. Things are having the fun squeezed out of them for profits (in app purchases, proprietary lockin, cloud shit that dies or has permanent bugs, etc), lots of stuff just feels like it’s plateaued or is junk.
Don’t forget that most of us are getting priced out of the hobby in general. It’s not fun when you can’t afford to play around in your own hobby. You move on and find a new hobby.
Retro handhelds is mine. At least playing aroundvwith something technology adjacent. Its fun and until the tarrifs came in, very cheap.
Very true. The last decade and a half have just been switching between round and square corners with mild spec bumps. VR was supposed to be it I think, but it just isn’t useful enough.
VR still is it. If you have €€€€
Take the bigscreen beyond 2.
A vr-headset starting at 1300 (incl. taxes/import).
Uhhh yeah.
Not happening for what little VR could offer me in my current situation (and I don’t watch porn).Facebook is the best and worst thing to have happened to VR. The Quest is an affordable headset that basically killed all competition and innovation in VR for years. Still holding out hope that the next Valve headset will come out eventually and shake up the scene again.
Theres leaks about some ‘Steam Frame’ happening.
Might be close.
He will look for answers literally anywhere, except for within.
The tech scene is just not as interesting anymore
He has literally publicly talked about this many times, he is very much aware of this fact and has stated that he’s always looking for things that he can try and make interesting.
and the stuff he specifically covers is even less interesting. But the bigger issue is that everything LMG do is just corporate jank. It was fun when it was home garage jank, with 2 employees, but now it’s just miserable and frustrating
On this part, I honestly don’t quite get it. It’s definitely a bit more corporate now, they are a 100 person company, but when it comes to the videos, I don’t really see what else you’d want them to do? Sure they have some sponsored videos every now and then that are just showcases of a specific product, but even then I typically find them relatively interesting. And they still have a lot of videos where they’re trying to build novel stuff and thinkering. Yeah, sure, it’s typically on a higher level than what the average Joe would be capable of doing in their backyard, but I still feel like there’s a place for it. Take one of the more recent videos, the one with the double-decker table. It’s extremely cool to me, they took a regular table and a sit-to-stand desk, put one on top of the other, and made effectively two desks in one, one for gaming and one for a hobby. It’s not something I’d build for myself, but it’s a really fun concept.
Those stupid thumbnails pushed me away
What I’ve noticed is YouTube recommending me more obscure videos, from very small creators.
I very much appreciate whatever they’re doing, regardless of how these bigger channels are being hit by it. Yesterday I got recommended a video by an elderly woman, showing a mug warmer she bought. It was very sweet, had less than 30 views and it was a lovely contrast to the flashy, over edited videos stretching a paragraph to 10+ minutes.
Not saying the big channels are bad, I just personally like the small time channels and appreciate that YouTube has been (at least with the algorithm it has set for me) giving these small channels a shot at getting an audience.
I’ve connected with a lot of people from smaller channels, joined communities etc. yet this is much more difficult with the larger ones (in some I’ve been to, over the years, the chatrooms they set up are so huge the moderation sometimes just gives up or doesn’t even exist in any practical way).I think the biggest channels I watch have under 4 million subscribers, and most of my channels have less than a million. I’ve never watched the big channels, so I don’t really care.
A while back, YT asked me about turning on my watch history, but I didn’t know it was off. I don’t know what that was about–I think they changed something–but my knee-jerk reaction is to NOT do what they want me to do, so I left it off. Now I just watch whatever is new from my subscriptions, and don’t have any suggestions cluttering my front page, which is a much better way to use YT, imo. So, thanks, YT.
i watched a ton of animal channels from not so big content creator, i feel like they were the most genuine. or other sci related channels.
