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?
I’ve noticed this in many of the channels I subscribe to, 5 years ago they had something like 1m views on some videos regularly and now only 300k (or similar decline), all of them. Some of them even made videos about it. My guess, and theirs, is YouTube changed the algorithm and also the introduction of shorts.
LLMs are doing things like summarizing videos and then using the summaries to answer queries that before would have been a search result with monetization.
Google’s executives are unconcerned about the declinibg incentives to create YouTube videos having been sold on the lie that the future of the internet lies in Ai generated content. In other words robots will make the internet.
Robots which hallucinate constantly.
I’m watching less 'tube in general because youtube is obnoxious as fuck. They devote so many resources to getting you to watch ads, it actually causes the whole experience to suffer even with an adblock.
I dunno I’ve still yet to see ads. Between Smart Tube Next on my TV, Firefox with uBlock origin on my computer, and AdGuard + Vinegar on my phone, nothing gets through, even with their latest efforts.
My theory is that we have a limited number of hours a day to view content. We also have a growing number of channels and content in general. Algorithms include new content we kight enjoy, and for every new channel we get hooked on, one of the older ones drops off.
Tv shows rarely (ever?) Last forever. Why should channels?
We do, but in the last decade youtube has doubled its yearly user count to something like 2.5 billion. That’s a lot of more people-hours to spend as well.
I came here to see if it was the early signs of the demise of YouTube. I secretly want all these content producers to move to a privacy-respecting platform, especially those who produce tech or privacy related content.
Now, for why I don’t watch videos anymore, the medium isn’t as easily consumed by me. I prefer text. At home, it’s noisy and I get interrupted every 90 seconds. I lose interest quickly and fast forwarding isn’t as easy as scanning text for a topic shift. My mind wanders on some topics, internally exploring that topic deeper. With text, i can just stop reading. With video, i need to realize that I’m processing a thought and hit pause, then rewind a bit. I get interrupted a lot. On the bus, I need to remember headphones and I hate when people shoulder surf. That’s harder to do with text. Give me a plain text RSS feed that I can read anytime.
Viewer bot farms is a thing. Is that a declining business now? And the results starting to show now?
Maybe they pivoted to ai farming? Dunno.
Some pretty serious things going on in the world today that need our support and therefore attention. I consume less entertainment as a byproduct.
Lol 90% of comments taking the opportunity to hate on LTT and missing the point of the post. Views are dropping for multiple channels.
Also the LTT hate is mostly “He’s so rich and out of touch”. LTT is the mass produced TV show for tech YouTube. It’s meant to be entertaining and easy to watch for the masses. I like watching most of their videos. Gamers Nexus has its place too but it’s a different kind of nerd whose a lil more cynical and obsessed with specs, a lot more niche and it shows in the views.
To each their own.
Most of the hate should be that he really doesn’t know what he is doing and should have a disclaimer as such.
That’s what the writers are for. It’s a produced show with a personality reading a teleprompter.
the channel has lost its charm. its just puking out videos, but there is no content. no real hardware tests. only drama and clickbait crap. he has lost the techsavvy part of the viewers on his tech channel with pushing garbage into everyones face.
Eh. I lost any interest I had with Linus after the whole Gamers’ Nexus thing, and I’m definitely staying away after hearing what Louis Rossman had to say about the guy.
i wonder whats his problem
My guess they started accounting for bot visits. Perhaps a lot of videos before were visited by bots. Not just to bump views but could be for training AI.
I agree, people forget how fake the internet is.
Or they could be subtracting viewers with ad blockers? It would make sense that more techie channels would be hit the hardest.
The overwhelming majority of Youtube visitors use the official app and even those who use a browser don’t have an adblock 88% of the time if my memory serves me right. So no, it’s not adblock.
Ok, is it possible if most people aren’t blocking ads, then maybe it is the ads themselves?
There are so many and they are getting longer. I wouldnt sit around to watch videos if they are interrupted every minute. The average rando probably goes back to TikTok, Facebook, or Instagram if they have to wait for something. If I used any of those services, I know I would jump ship.
I think you’ve hit it on the nose right here. Especially since this declining viewership problem has been hitting channels across all of YouTube and it has only been since they started their crusade against ad blockers.
The more interesting part for me, that they mentioned on the WAN show, is that while viewers dropped significantly, the revenue basically hasn’t changed. They’re more or less making the same amount of money from half the amount of reported viewers.
They’re more or less making the same amount of money from half the amount of reported viewers.
This would pretty much confirm that they’ve stopped counting viewers who use adblockers.
Isn’t that the formula? They take all of the revenue, set aside the percentage they’ve set for revenue share, and then divide that among all channels based on viewer counts. Dropping viewership for all channels proportionally means that the same amount of revenue will still be distributed to the channels in the previous ratios.
I’m not quite sure I understood what you were talking about, but they specifically showed their revenues from YouTube AdSense for the past year or so, and they showed exactly how much they gained from each video, and it shows basically a straight line, whilst the same graph for viewers shows a substantial decrease. I’m not sure if that was specifically for LTT or for all of their channels, but I’m assuming it was just for LTT. That has no relation to them then splitting their revenues to their different channels.
The same proportion will be given but the total revenue overall should shrink with less viewers, so less for each creator.
YouTube is hostile to viewers unless you pay them £20 a month.
It’s like 15 ads per 2 mins screen time with 2 being unstoppable and 1 being 3 minutes long. Slightly exaggerated but not far from the truth. It’s horrible. And they slow everything down too, the main video fake buffers whereas when you’re in premium it doesn’t.
I didn’t mind paying a fiver but had to do it via the moon to get it cheap but now they have stopped that.
They are using automatic dubbing by default here in France! I was horrified the first time.
It horrifies me as a German. They also get titles, descriptions and comments wrong all the time. It legitimately doesn’t work.
After some time it “learns” you don’t want it.
But what grinds my gears instead are auto-translated video titles.
Because I am watching maybe 70-80% english content I decided the lesser evil is to just set the language to english instead.
Annoying as fuck but managable.Because I am watching maybe 70-80% english content I decided the lesser evil is to just set the language to english instead.
Google has always made it extremely clear that they don’t believe it’s possible for the human brain to know more than one language, and that anyone who claims to know more than one is a liar and a witch and has no place in their platforms.
This honestly doesn’t surprise me, because English proficiency in France is below that of Spain, Russia and even Italy, which says a lot.
I hate them for auto translating the video titles and descriptions with no way to turn them off, I even installed an extension to restore the original titles but YT broke it again intentionally or unintentionally with their unending tweaks.
for Android (TV): smart tube next
For a browser (Firefox): ublock origin.
Have not seen an ad in years, and i have not paid a cent to youtube.
For anyone following the smart tube next tutorial on github you don’t need to do anything after installing the “kutt.it/…” Download. You do not need to transfer an APK from your phone or computer. Literally just download the downloader, and type the beta or stable package address and install, also make sure you have developer options enabled beforehand.
Also, probably a great time to turn updates to your OS off, as Google is taking away the ability to sideload (well, kinda). It’s a whole story. Highly doubt that SmartTube Next is gonna get a licence to allow signing of their app.
Yep agreed.
It’s downright disgusting to browse youtube without premium or an adblocker.Sadly I need premium simply because I am watching on an Android TV and I am not trusting third party clients with my google account.
Too much stuff is associated with it (monetary)And God forbid you enable captions on the video or something - it’ll disable itself every time an ad plays.
How do I turn that feature on?
I keep turning off captions off, and every few days they are automatically turned back on.
“That’s the neat part: Fuck you >:(”
- Youtube
Or you use adblock
I would but I primarily watch on my tv
get SmartTube Next if it’s an android TV
Sadly not. Apple TV
ah. i have the same issue on my iphone. I just don’t watch youtube on my iphone because fuck ads.
Get the ublock origin lite and on for safari, had worked an absolute treat for stopping YouTube ads on my iPad.
aha thanks. I just installed it, and no ads!
deleted by creator
I assume you’re using a “smart” TV.
Those things only exist to take power away from you. You should hook up a PC or laptop to your TV with a wireless keyboard and mouse so you’re not being herded by techbros.
I’m quite happy with my Apple TV and Plex
I have the same setup as you and just pay the Premium. One thing I would recommend is getting isponsorblocktv on your server. It skips the ad reads within the YouTube content and works on Apple TV. Every year or so I look for a tracker doing YouTube or a sonarr YouTube fork. The instinct to hoard data is strong. But none have worked consistently for me.
Ah good shout, I remember looking in to that a while back but never went ahead.
The hard thing about needing premium is I could likely easily not have it, but the scumbags limit downloads (cache) on YouTube kids to premium members, which comes in handy in a pickle for sure for my daughter.
Instead of using those, you could be using a free streaming site. You’ll get more content and it’s easier to set up.
Just type in the URL, and search for what you want.
Here’s one of the best sites I’ve found: https://hydrahd.io/ I guarantee they have significantly more offerings than either apple tv or your plex.
Free streaming sites are awful. I prefer my way thank you.
And I don’t mind paying for things, just not getting ripped off.
I buy things on 4k that are special, then on iTunes for in between and then high seas everything else. I have a decent home server.
Free streaming sites are awful.
No they aren’t, lol. But whatever floats your boat.
I’ll be over here enjoying more things for a cheaper price and helping others do the same.
Yeah fuck using a keyboard and mouse at 5 meters away. You really should roll a custom Linux box with a remote control setup and Plasma Bigscreen. Custom YouTube client too, for better visibility
Don’t listen to this person. He’s trying to make things unnecessarily complicated because he doesn’t know any better.
We don’t see people using keyboards for their TVs, instead we see them slowly type with on screen keyboards. A remote control is not going to alleviate this and will make setup significantly more complicated.
I’m going to block this user now, so I won’t get to see his reply. I’ve been on the internet long enough to recognize people like him for what they are and move on.
Lol you’re the one plugging a super inconvenient solution as if it should be the default, I just took it farther to ridicule yours. It’s great that you can’t stand criticism of your questionable ideas and have to block others. Means your ideas aren’t too be taken seriously.
Have you considered that the average TV user sits down after a hard day and doesn’t want to troubleshoot a wireless mouse, nor boot a computer separately from turning on the TV? The world out there is rough, your TV is supposed to be the one thing that just works and numbs it down for you so you can pretend things are fine.
I have premium through a page that makes family groups and you pay a lot less. From time to time there is an issue with the group and you spend like two days without premium until it is fixed.
During those periods YT is unwatchable and I skip using it until the issue is fixed
And then there is the occasional 30 minute to an hour infomercial that comes on obvious stuff people watch to go to sleep! I wanted someone softly talking about outer spacey things, not you’re shitty product I give so much little of a fuck about that I didn’t even look at what was being advertised. I hate you so much I will not even remember your name to give you free advertising by birding about you online!
I didn’t mind paying a fiver but had to do it via the moon to get it cheap but now they have stopped that.
Useful idiot mentality. They’re charging you that money to maximize profit, not because it’s necessary to provide the service.
Your “fivers” are paying for their nicer campuses, executive bonuses, and lavish business trips/vacations. Analysts also use it as an excuse to charge more, since the data shows that people like you are “happy/proud” to get ripped off.
I wish proles were smarter and a bit more mean so they could better recognize how they’re being taken advantage of and how often they support their oppressors.
Too many of you go along with getting taken for a ride because you want to fit in and avoid conflict. Businessmen take advantage of that mentality every day.
Yes, large scale video hosting is notoriously free to provide.
YouTube the service absolutely has a cost to it. It’s been born by the owners at first and then people who watch ads. It got profitable when they started showing more ads. Premium is a way to get out of watching ads. You and I use adblockers and it’s fine but if a significant share of people did, the cost for paying users would have to keep increasing.
It must be exhausting being this way.
Ignorance is bliss, I tell ya h’wat.
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.
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.
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.
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 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’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.
AI slop most likely. Well, to be serious, I think the drop is due to them trying to fight AI slop and miserably failing.
DarkviperAU also mentioned it.
Stopped watching this douche nozzle when they were having a big meet and greet to celebrate their new studio. And he looks at the camera guy and tells them inf front of all the fans they’re having a good time with… Overtime tonight guys, we gotta edit this footage and have it online today. Would have quit my job on the spot and as a viewer I quit my part in the bullshit right then and there.
I dunno, I realized a long time ago this is just a business for the people engaging in it.
Of course they’re making more money than they need and are partying as much as possible with it.
May care to link to what you mean?
Can’t remember what you are talking about.
Maybe try not threatening to sue former employees when they come forward about sexual harassment
