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YouTube Views Are Down Across the Board, Analysis Says (kotaku.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Kotaku: For months, YouTubers have complained that their view counts are down. New data from the third-party stat tracker SocialBlade confirms what YouTubers fear: viewership is lower across the board. SocialBlade crunched some numbers for Kotaku and determined that, since the first half of the year, YouTube views are now 5-7% lower. Between July and September, that decrease was 10%. It's pretty significant. Why YouTube views have gone down is unclear, but some good theories are floating around. SocialBlade Community Manager Danny Fratella pointed to two potential causes: view audits and altered video-promoting algorithms. During view audits, YouTubers don't actually lose views. YouTube is removing botted or invalid playbacks from the view count. This happens all at once in a sort of purge -- something YouTube has explained publicly. But now that YouTubers have tools like SocialBlade to more rigorously moderate their data, they may be noticing these purges more, Fratella suggested. He added that SocialBlade doesn't see view counts purged as often as subscriber counts -- the main complaint going around YouTube communities. Although YouTubers have widely complained that fans are now randomly unsubscribed from their channels, YouTube and SocialBlade both told me that they've noticed nothing out of the ordinary in subscription data. YouTube's video-promoting algorithm may also play a role in an apparent decreased viewership. What videos the platform draws more eyes to reflects their philosophy on what videos should go viral.
I'm also seeing videos posted and shared on Facebook (ie the video is hosted by Facebook and is not a link to the original Youtube video), without attribution (and often with the very beginning and / or end cut off) with many millions of views. This must have an impact as well.
Better known as 318230.
Mark is sucking all the videos.
Maybe there are just better videos elsewhere?
Russian Car Crash videos.
Is it just me that the promotion algorithm suggests lots of what appears to be pirated BBC content? (Hignfy, wilty)
That's when it's not suggesting Top 10 lists!
It's because they've integrated with more measurement and verification tech and are filtering more fake views. Same as FB which is what revealed their own problems in recent history.
When the ads are longer than the content, the value of watching videos there is negative.
What if it's just that watching random guy number 127693 play video games for hours is just boring after a while that people stop watching? Or random girl number 4528913 talking about her amazing life, or unboxing videos and all that useless garbage that makes up to 99% of the Internet in general?
Video of some good progressive thrash music
I'm seeing more and more ads on Youtube, and more and more, when I see an unskippable ad, I just close Youtube. It turns out that there's more than enough content out there to keep me entertained, and sitting through a 20 - 30 second ad isn't worth it.
I feel like they tweaked the recommendations, and I'm not getting as many videos coming from my subscriptions.
That said, I like getting more exposure to channels I haven't subscribed to. I found some awesome channels that way.
Perhaps people are starting to get tired of YouTube?
I do feel sorry, though, for those poor souls who may - one day - have to figure out how to earn a living doing something other than recording videos of themselves. That's certainly nice work, if you can get it...
#DeleteChrome
You used to be able to view your replies in the drop-down window by itself, now it forces you to jump to the video. That drives "views".
Are views up on Twitch and Patreon?
I can't tell how many times I've gone up to watch a "how to" video and have the video maker yak for 10 minutes or longer as an intro. Or they video the setup to make the video.
And the actual information that's needs is about 30 seconds of the video.
I can't tell how many times I've gone up to watch a "how to" video and have the video maker yak for 10 minutes or longer as an intro.
Did you know that there is a little scan bar at the bottom of the video that you can use to skip over all of that?
YouTubers have widely complained that fans are now randomly unsubscribed from their channels
Oh no!! However will western civilization survive this apocalypse?
It'll solve your problems.
Im not sure what all the fuss is about. So? I keep seeing youtubers crying about this but that is the equivalent to NBC having shows about nobody watching their shows. Viewers fluctuate. I dont see why we would care if its up or down or whatever (unless your a youtuber yourself, in which case that is a very small population). Why is this news? And that isnt sarcasm, I dont see what is important here.
You don't get much relevance any more. For example the "Trending" section only reinforces the easiest pablum on youtube. There's been a few youtube discussions of how the changing ranking system (and the change to optimum revenue for the youtuber) has pushed individual and novel content out and pushed for a churn-factory of stuff from a huge team able to produce "new content" on a regular daily basis with high production values. And the viewing pattern being rewarded is one identical to TV and to a large extent Netflix/et al: binge watching the "latest new stuff" and coming back to the channel every day for more binge watching.
Essentially turning it into TV. And killing the unique expressions that youtube can deliver for formulaic channels of huge production teams running every day, all day, for years. Something individual youtube stars (e.g. pewdiepie, despite how big he is, he's still a one-man production in front of the screen) cannot do. They can't do it for long every day without resting for some days, but if you don't have new stuff every day, you're not trending, your ranking goes down, and your revenues dry up, making it harder to come back after a break.
Its now a mobile-first world and no one wants to chew through their monthly hi-speed/LTE data cap in the blink of an eye. Until unlimited data is the rule rather than the exception this trend will continue, IMHO.
YouTube has lately started to crack down on certain content creators that were deemed "offensive" by certain other content creators. Without going into detail because I could really do without yet another "he said - she said" fight, and without even giving a shit whether that's a good thing or not: It was something that some people apparently wanted to see, and they're now going elsewhere to see it.
That's the beauty about the first amendment. Yes, you may speak your mind. No, you have no right to demand from me that I offer you a platform. But I, in turn, have no right to complain if you go and find another platform and take your audience with you.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I tried to open a new Youtube account for something else, and had a tough time finding favorites. I have a few other accounts, all of which had Favorites from day 1, and where I had no problems, but somehow, for this, YouTube seemed to have removed the ability to add favorites to a video. I had to do a lot of exploring before I could even get to playlists, and then I added a new playlist calling it Favorites. It then showed up in my menu
Real problem is that some of these sites have programmers who just have to be kept employed, so they keep tweaking the interface, thereby breaking things that used to previously work
You can't "skim" a video the same way you can skim an article. Sure you can easily skip past the ridiculous animated dubstep intro, but the rest is probably still cam and there's no immediate way to tell when you've jumped to the right spot. You have to basically click forward randomly, wait for the stream to load, (occasionally refresh the entire page because the amazing, infallible google video player fucked up and "An error occurred"), and watch for 10 seconds per click to try to determine whether they're talking about anything important yet. Rinse and repeat for 5 minutes, then start over at the beginning of the video because somehow you passed it the first time.
Why YouTube views have gone down is unclear, but some good theories are floating around. SocialBlade Community Manager Danny Fratella pointed to two potential causes: view audits and altered video-promoting algorithms.
How about endless, intrusive ads without the slightest relevance? How about annoying auto-spam video play by default? How about other video sites that offer a way more pleasant experience? How about google powerpointers should take their faces out of each other's buttholes for a moment and listen to what users are saying?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Wring you just donthave experience skipping videos. Its the same principle as skipping text. You first pick a random paragraph around 10% into it to read/listen, then decide if you need to skip forward or back a little. Repeat until you have read or heard all the content that matters. theres no difference really (sorry about the punctuation i'm using a phone)
Did you know that there is a little scan bar at the bottom of the video that you can use to skip over all of that?
But I shouldn't have too.
You'll typically get 30 seconds of info in 4+ minutes (Hey followers, Joe Blow here. I'm a gonna show you something you googled for, but first I'm gonna impress you with how important I am. Follow me at somewhere dot somewhere. etc etc etc). Unless a friend sends the link I never watch You-Tube. I don't have a FB account, so my friends are actually people I've had a beer with and occasionally bumped uglies with.
Did you know that there is a little scan bar at the bottom of the video that you can use to skip over all of that?
Yes, but it's a pain in the ass to try and scrub back and forth to find what you want and skipping forward or backward by 30 seconds is unreasonably difficult- it ends up moving me a minute or two which is too much. Often I just want to review the last 30 or 40 seconds, or I want to skip ahead to get to the meat of the video. After all this time Youtube still won't implement real skip controls.
Amazon video does it right- they have controls to let you skip forward and backward by 10 seconds at a time and I love it.
Netflix on the other hand only allows backwards skipping, which is just annoying.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
You do if you want to skip over that.
Nobody is going to do it for you, lazy liberal.
Yeah this is why I download the video with youtube-dl and then just play it back with mpv, because I can skip backward or forward 10 seconds at a time easily.
Or maybe it's because more and more of us are using tracker blockers and they don't know the real numbers.
there's shitloads of amazing commentary and criticism on youtube. Plus tons of great original animation. Go to the ExtraCreditz channel and watch the recent "Dan Recommends" series. Search for pony.mov and Brain Dump. Ever want to see anime picked apart by a film critic? Digibro. And Kim Justice's retrospectives on British computing are amazing.
This story caught me by surprise because I'm watching more youtube than regular TV these days.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I still watch a lot of youtube, but I'm not watching every single Daily Show, Sam Bee and Colbert video, and I've plum forgot about John Oliver until this post (which is a pity, he's the funniest of the bunch). Now, I have to admit that my side losing the election is a downer (though I do like what Keith Olbermann has been doing) but still, I'm definitely not watching as much as peak election.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The fact that the adds have become super intrusive
There's simply a physical limit on the number of (usually stupid) things you can do as a Youtuber to attract viewers and people are starting to have seen all of it.
You do if you want to skip over that.
Nobody is going to do it for you, lazy liberal.
I'm just not going to watch your video you stupid hick.
Sure you will. Then you will whigne and complain incessantly that you are somehow being victimized by something that has nothing to do with you and something you -really- didn't have to watch in the first place, you stupid snowflake.
For years YouTube benefited from increasing customer base but the market is saturated. Just about everybody who can and would watch YouTube has.
In addition there are more and more videos competing for the same fixed pool. End result, less views per specific video.
Their best bet is to start carrying porn. In the short term it will attract attention, in the longer term they might help create more humans to watch porn.
a number of popular youtubers, like phillip defranco have spoken out against this very topic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJKfe4jjUdg
I can't tell how many times I've gone up to watch a "how to" video and have the video maker yak for 10 minutes or longer as an intro.
It's worse when they interject personal crap throughout the video. That isn't as simple to skip as a big, long intro.
When I watch ANY Youtube video, the first thing I do is change the speed to 1.25x. After a few seconds I can then decide if 1.50x speed will suit the vocal style of the Youtuber. I just can't stand to watch videos at normal speed now that I am used to speeding it up in an attempt to get closer to speed that I could read the same information. But given that the information in a 10 minute video can usually be written as one or two paragraphs, even a sped up video can never actually reach my reading speed.
Instead of using a cellphone camera to record your inanity.
C'mon. Complaining about Facebook and keeping your account? Do something about it! Tell others to do something! You Can Change The World!
Is a download with youtube-dl counted as a view? I've never bothered to check, because I don't give a shit about view cunts.
There are only so many cute things cats can do, and we have finally exhausted the list.
Ever since they added commercial breaks to youtube videos I have been doing anything I can to find alternate methods of viewing the same content, such as visiting the content creator's site directly and using their own video player. Often they don't use YouTube on their own site. Even if I do want to view the content, if I have to sit through an ad I automatically just think "forget it" and close the tab. I'm just sick of unskippable video-based ads.
Twinstiq, game news
I'm not sure if this works across all platforms, but mpv will automatically use youtube-dl to stream and play a video if you invoke it with a Youtube URL (or any other streaming video site it supports), and it still supports quit-and-resume, even with playlists. I cannot push mpv enough, since just opening a Youtube page pushes my CPU temp higher than watching a 1080p stream with mpv (to be fair, I have one or two userscripts running to try and make youtube bearable.)
they're saying "YouTubers are complaining that viewers are tired of their pretentious, stupid, and dishonest clickbait-bullshit. Suck it up.
Adblock can't do (or do as well) 16 things hosts do 4 speed, security & reliability:
1.) Protect vs. bad sites (past ads)
2.) Protect vs. fastflux botnet C&C servers
3.) Protect vs. dynamic dns botnet C&C servers
4.) Protect vs. DGA botnet C&C servers
5.) Protect vs. downed DNS (reliability)
6.) Protect vs. DNS redirect poisoned/downed dns
7.) Protect vs. trackers
8.) Protect vs. spam payloads
9.) Protect vs. phish payloads
10.) Protect vs. caps
11.) Get past dns blocks
12.) Keep off dns request logs
13.) Speed up 2 ways (adblocks & hardcodes)
14.) Work on anything webbound multiplatform.
15.) Ez data edit
16.) Block ads more efficiently in cpu/ram/I-O use
APK
P.S.=> Ab+ does less vs. hosts less efficiently (a 128-151mb memory hog http://cdn.ghacks.net/wp-conte...)
ClarityRay defeats it
Ab+'s bribed not to work by default http://www.businessinsider.com...
AdBlock's SLOWER: http://superuser.com/questions...
APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-4 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?...
Ads rob speed, security (malvertising) & privacy (tracking).
Hosts add speed (hardcodes/adblocks), security (bad sites/poisoned dns), reliability (dns down), & anonymity (dns requestlogs/trackers) natively.
Works vs. caps & PUSH ads.
Avg. page = big as Doom http://www.theregister.co.uk/2... & ads = 40% of it.
Hosts != ClarityRay blockable (vs. souled-out to admen inferior wasteful redundant slow usermode addons)
Less power/cpu/ram + IO use vs. DNS/routers/addons/antivirus (slows you) + less security issues/complexity.
Compliments firewalls (blocking less used IP addys vs. hosts blocking more used domains) & DNS (lightens dns load).
Gets data via 10 security sites.
APK
P.S. - Safe https://www.virustotal.com/en/... (Verified by Malwarebytes' S. Burn "seen the code & it's safe" http://forum.hosts-file.net/vi... )
They're always posting huge view numbers for some videos.
Other videos they take down and start the count at zero.
Who's to know? No way to audit.
Bunch of book cookers.
today they let me waste my time to upload then refused to publish it unless I gave them a cell# which I do not have!
dailymotion was much easier to use
Youtube has terminated some of the accounts I used to watch. #PizzaGate is too real https://dcpizzagate.wordpress.com/
Seriously.
I've had to say "Don't show me this again" to some videos HUNDREDS of times, and they still keep coming up in my suggested.
I've tried wiping my view history.
I've tried pretty much everything, and I keep getting crap I don't want to see shoveled at me, and I see very little of anything that DOES interest me outside of a few channel subs.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Ram a bunch of ads down the users throats and watch them go elsewhere. Youtubes content is not worth paying for or watching the ads to see. Many viewers are going from YouTube to paid streaming services. They get in return no ads and higher quality content.
If Google does not cut the ads YouTube will wither and die. Just like countless other google services they could not resist tinkering with. They are poisoning their whole brand.
See subject: Accept it "ne'er-do-well". You can't even validly technically prove me wrong & can't do better yourself.
* QUESTION: What've YOU personally done better that works vs. ads & numerous other threats online?
N O T H I N G... all "your kind" does is 'chatter' like FOOLS online behind FAKE NAMES for your FAKE LIVES!
APK
P.S.=> So eat my dust punk... apk
See subject & this link https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5467931&cid=47566595/ & you didn't answer my question chattering fool hiding behind your FAKE NAME for your FAKE LIFE (lol, truer words were NEVER spoken on /. regarding a "ne'er-do-well" TALKER like you).
* LOL - NoScript? Hosts block adserver script sources MINUS having to parse a page for tags stupid - 1 step before NoScript even works going thru MASSIVE GYRATIONS to do the job (constantly having to update to, people get sick of that).
You have to use more than I do (1 single file you natively already HAVE operating in far more cpu serviced/faster kernelmode vs. BLOATING already slower usermode browsers with more messagepassing, cpu, ram & other I/O overheads - DUMB)
APK
P.S.=> RequestPolicy doesn't do a fraction of what hosts does... apk
"He brings up counter-evidence, and then you just call him crazy. You lost the argument." - by Raenex ( 947668 ) on Thursday May 01, 2014 @08:53PM (#46896133)
You call me spammer & have the nerve to do so since you can't prove me wrong technically after saying that?
R O T F L M A O!
APK
P.S.=> Little "pot calling a kettle black" HYPOCRITE hiding behind your FAKE NAME for your FAKE "ne'er-do-well" LIFE much? apk
""He brings up counter-evidence, and then you just call him crazy. You lost the argument." - by Raenex ( 947668 ) on Thursday May 01, 2014 @08:53PM (#46896133)
No you ran. See your own words quoted. You LOSE, loser.
APK
P.S.=> Call me 'spammer' but you're a "ne'er-do-well" who can't show he's done more than I have vs. threats online YOURSELF (all you have is illogical off-topic ad hominem attacks as you can't attack my tech points & instead FAIL trying to 'attack me' & I shoot you to pieces (2 tools that don't do as much as hosts + are inefficient & inferior https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10035267&cid=53551789/ LOL!)... apk
"You mention speed, but give no hard numbers" - by Raenex
Where are YOUR 'hard #s? They're not. Common-sense - Hosts operating in kernelmode IS faster than usermode, period (more cpu service & before NoScript even BEGINS to start? Hosts has done the job - Opera does the rest here by globally NOT allowing scripts (making 'exception sites' IF I need script)).
"open source vs untrustworthy proprietary source" - by Raenex
My source is verified by malwarebytes folks & safe per google's virustotal (proven in my earlier posts)!
Google found out about "OpenSORES" w/ EFast (STUPID) & hosts ARE cross-platform - Everything w/ a BSD IP stack std. derivation has them!
"whitelist vs blacklist argument" - by Raenex
Hosts do a form of it (hardcodes secure you vs. dns poisoning or being downed + MAKING YOU RESOLVE FASTER locally from RAM)
APK
If I follow a few YT links from a non-YT site, all those videos show the same adds, even without the 'skip in 4 seconds' possibility.
I have lost interest completely after seeing the same add 3 times, and start vowing to never buy the product shown in the add. That can not be the effect the add company is after.
See subject hypocrite & yes, they shift - hence my program to update vs. them the fastest + most efficient native way!
* Guess what else: I cut off my local DNS service? I literally HAVE the same whitelisting you do via hosts hardcodes & I resolve locally FASTER too (no addon is a resolver, hosts is via the IP stack itself in FASTER kernelmode too).
APK
P.S.=> (you FAIL again & it was a PLEASURE utterly annihilating you the rest of the way here too https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10035267&cid=53551987/ ... apk
See subject & these facts: See subject: Your use of NoScript = inefficient vs. hosts (1 step block vs. parsing pages for tags) + requestpolicy "Bolting on 'MoAr'" since noscript doesn't cut it STILL doesn't do all hosts do & your inability to prove all my initial posts' points technically wrong!
I easily SHUT YOU DOWN 3x here vs. your lies which my 2nd post extolls https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10035267&cid=53551987 & NoScript inefficiency vs. hosts https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10035267&cid=53551789 + ILLOGIC LOGIC you use but YOUR OWN WORDS = YOUR UNDOING, lol https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10035267&cid=53551789 easily!
On whitelisting: Hosts do it as I said for more speed & efficiency + IF I cut DNS? I can add more favorites whitelisted easily. You fail again.
APK
I don't know about other people but I'm having sound problems with Youtube. I was also having video glitches when i played any of their videos. The video glitching went away for some reason but I'm still having problems with audio. The only place I've noticing audio/video problems is with Youtube. I had problems years ago with ads causing the videos to freeze so i was unable to watch anything on Youtube. I had to quit Hulu stuff a long time ago because of video freezing on commercials. The commercials play fine on Youtube it seem just to the videos themselves that the audio problems occur. I'm looking at switching to Vimeo full time if the problems continue.