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?
It’s not particularly about him, his channel, or his content. If his channel had been declining, that’s usually a downward trend. What happened instead is that LTT lost 50% of their viewers suddenly in the last month. Other YouTubers have also stated that in the last month, out of nowhere, their viewership dropped crazily, up to 60%. However, LTT analyzed that although they have half as many viewers, ‘like ratio’ skyrocketed and ad revenue stayed the same. Josh Strife Hayes made a video blaming YT’s new feature “restricted mode” for this, which, when active, blocks a lot of videos for seemingly no reason. Some others have also noted the problem and are investigating, but a lot of information points out to something youtube did as the cause of the issue.
Can’t prove anything, but I have always had trust issues with Youtube’s numbers. Youtube is a for profit company with horrible owners at the top, and would they distort the numbers for political or financial reasons? I think they would.
I think Youtube and Reddit inflate and deflate vote counts and view counts when something is important to the owners.
Granted that is what I think. Can’t prove it. But Google, Alphabet, Youtube, and the new entrants like Grumble, they are black box for profit companies. Can they pass an independent audit for their view and subscriber counts? We should not trust anything from these bad actors. Certainly don’t assume good faith. Audit them by five (more than one) independent and transparent auditing companies to prove their numbers are legit. Every six months. Every year. Forever. Until then I take all those view and subscriber numbers with a fistful of salt.
Linus from LTT was ostensibly really popular. I never watched it. Lets say their old numbers were legit. Is it possible some nephew of Youtube’s CEO is starting a competing channel and Youtube fudges the numbers to help push the nepo channel ahead? To me, yes, it is possible. I have very little trust for those black boxes. “Trust me bro” is all they got so far, and I have little reason to trust these entities.
So basically Google/Alphabet/Youtube reports a new number to Linus. Are the old and the new numbers legit? Can we ascertain it beyond Youtube’s “trust me bro” nonsense? We need to start there, and don’t jump to conclusions about viewership habits.