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One Billion Hours of YouTube Are Watched Every Day (thenextweb.com)

YouTube announced in a blog post that people around the world are now watching a billion hours of YouTube videos every single day. According to YouTube, "If you were to sit and watch a billion hours of YouTube, it would take you over 100,000 years." Mashable reports: The milestone "represents the enjoyment of the fantastically diverse videos that creative people make every single day," Cristos Goodrow, VP of engineering at YouTube, wrote in a blog post Monday. "Around the world, people are spending a billion hours every day rewarding their curiosity, discovering great music, keeping up with the news, connecting with their favorite personalities, or catching up with the latest trend." The 1 billion figure is a 10-fold increase since 2012, YouTube said. The statistic is one that underscores YouTube's efforts to dominate the digital space. On YouTube -- which operates under the motto "Broadcast Yourself" -- users upload 400 hours of video each minute, or 65 years of video a day.

72 comments

  1. One Billion Hours of YouTube Are Watched Every Day by Chrisq · · Score: 1

    One Billion Hours of YouTube Are Watched Every Day. And some of them don't involve cats.

  2. Re: One Billion Hours of YouTube Are Watched Every by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    YouTube videos... without... cats?? Heresy!

  3. This is the solution to automatization! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    We keep asking ourselves what we're gonna do when robots take over our jobs. Watch Youtube, of course!

    Perhaps state allocations should be made dependent on the watched hours per week or something.

    1. Re:This is the solution to automatization! by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      15 Million Merits

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
  4. Re:One Billion Hours of YouTube Are Watched Every by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    one billion hours - smells like BS.

    world population 6 billion - how many with poor internet access.

  5. UP NEXT-Auto play-on by default with noone watchn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and attempts at "playola" by telling people to put videos on repeat

    like the "fuck donald trump" music video on repeat, at one point I saw hundreds of views every 2-3 seconds

  6. Re:One Billion Hours of YouTube Are Watched Every by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > One Billion Hours of YouTube Are Watched Every Day. And some of them don't involve cats.

    Those are all videos of some korean rapper horsing around.
    https://arstechnica.com/busine...

    captcha: famous

  7. Re:One Billion Hours of YouTube Are Watched Every by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some are about bunnies.

  8. Youtube Kills Over a Thousand People Every Day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Alternative headline

  9. Re:UP NEXT-Auto play-on by default with noone watc by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Yeah i have to wonder how much of that is auto play as well. I am guilty of that often, watch a video on chromecast then I've walked off and doing something else or fallen asleep and it just goes on auto playing random stuff for hours at a time. Im doing that right now, having watched some travel documentaries and i am now in the other room on the PC as it go on auto playing more related content.

    These days ive been using youtube as my primary source of video "entertainment" primarily watching documentary and technical type stuff on there. Alot of that kind of content is pretty good, and the autoplay is pretty good as well. You can look up some topic on youtube and just get hours of related content once it goes autoplay.

    Working in the cable industry i have comped cable service at home that i never watch any more these days everything is just garbage on there. Youtube has better quality content being produced by one man and small group content creators than the big mega media companies can do these days. About the only time i'll ever switch on my cable box is if there is something newsworthy Id like to watch live. I think the presidential election night was the last time i had my cable box turned on. whenever i am no longer working for the company the video service will be the 1st thing i drop once it isn't comped any longer.

  10. It's better than TV by kkoo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't watch any TV broadcasts. I only watch content I've discovered or followed on Youtube. I doubt I'm the only one.

    1. Re:It's better than TV by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

      And I probably only watch some quick instructional video on YouTube once a quarter- averaging maybe 45mins of YouTube a year.

      The average person is somewhere between you and I.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    2. Re:It's better than TV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. Youtube is the #1 site in the world for copyright infringment. But they have way more people in suits and lawyers than minor infringers like Megaupload or torrent sites. That's why Youtube is so popular and has not yet been closed as a pirate platform. When I want to watch some music video or TV series as illegal stream, I first check out Youtube, and only if it's not available there go to more shady sites suggested by Google. But in 90% of all cases, I find what I'm looking for on Youtube already.

      Youtube rocks. No need to buy any movies, series or records any more!

    3. Re:It's better than TV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't watch any TV broadcasts. I only watch content I've discovered or followed on Youtube. I doubt I'm the only one.

      You're not.

      In the UK with have a 'TV license' (aka. TV tax to pay for the British Broadcasting Company, to let them make more repetitive drivel) - when I moved, we cancelled the license and haven't looked back. It's cake time!

    4. Re:It's better than TV by houghi · · Score: 1

      Same here. I follow about 200 channels. That said, many of them will have had no content or might be dead. I might also not watch each and every video on each channel I follow.

      I do follow via RSS feed, because it is way easier to follow what is new and what not.

      The hard thing is to find new channels that are of interest as I will get the same ones offered time and time again and I am either already subscribed to it, or I have already decided I do not want to subscribe to it.

      Same for other random content. Finetuning the search is not helping much.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    5. Re:It's better than TV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've tried watching it, but to call the people who post youtube videos amateurs would be an insult to amateurs.

      The many flaws of a typical youtube video:

      • single-position camera for the whole video
      • spending way too much time pointing cameras at their faces
      • using only one camera
      • not editing out the unnecessary and boring parts
    6. Re:It's better than TV by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 1

      I watch TV. And you're right, Youtube is better than most of it. :p

      --
      Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
    7. Re:It's better than TV by antdude · · Score: 1

      Yeah. Some of my friends refuse to watch YouTube. I do both TV and Internet.

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  11. Re: One Billion Hours of YouTube Are Watched Every by dougdonovan · · Score: 1

    i ****ed up and sold my utube stock. time to get back in.

  12. Re: One Billion Hours of YouTube Are Watched Every by dougdonovan · · Score: 1

    i care about my Internet access.

  13. Re:One Billion Hours of YouTube Are Watched Every by LordWabbit2 · · Score: 1

    I am sure there a lot of people with poor internet access, personally I think my internet access sucks balls, but that's beside the point.

    --
    There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
  14. "watched" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You mean played, right?

  15. Ummm, says who? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    7 billion people on Earth, so every single human being on the planet is watching close to 10 minutes of YouTube every day?

    Every. Single. Person.

    Really?!?!?!

    Do you think someone is trying to inflate viewership numbers that drive ad revenue?

    1. Re:Ummm, says who? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Statistics don't work like that.

      The reality is that only about a billion people have access to the Internet (or a pot to piss in, or even enough food for a given day), and about 6 billion people subsist on scraps, begging, digging through trash, or working as slaves for the aforementioned billion rich folk.

      Those 1 billion people are collectively watching a billion hours of Youtube a day. That doesn't mean that each of them is watching an hour. It might be that only 500 million of them even watch youtube, and of those, there may be a small number who watch 8 hours a day.

  16. Re: One Billion Hours of YouTube Are Watched Every by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually seven billion now, but still, this just means maybe one seventh of the population watch an hour a day. Doesn't stretch credibility.

  17. Never seen any utube by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ever.

  18. WUt about the people who DONT create? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    >> "...the fantastically diverse videos that creative people make every single day"

    And then there are all the non-creative people who take other people's videos and repackage them into a compilation or the people who post TV shows that they didn't create or post entire music albums that they didn't create. "Fair Use" they claim. Bah,

  19. I'm on Youtube all day by BlackPignouf · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm on Youtube all day at work, but I don't watch anything, I just listen to the music.

    1. Re:I'm on Youtube all day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. I wonder what percentage is it being used as a poor man's streaming music. I bet my own use is about 99% music and of that the vast majority is with the browser closed/tab not having focus with the exception being live concert stuff but even then I'm rarely looking at it. Only when I'm waiting on a build or test or something.

    2. Re:I'm on Youtube all day by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

      Using enough bandwidth for video but only listening to the audio. You're the reason there's a bandwidth shortage!

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    3. Re:I'm on Youtube all day by l20502 · · Score: 1

      Youtube already serves separate audio and video tracks, one would expect them to be able to process/compress nicely still images.

    4. Re:I'm on Youtube all day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Using enough bandwidth for video but only listening to the audio. You're the reason there's a bandwidth shortage!

      My employer blocks streaming audio but allows Youtube. So I "watch" music while I code. I'm probably burning 3x the bandwidth for half the sound quality. But oh well.

    5. Re:I'm on Youtube all day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      music is a big thing - my kids are listening to youtube all day long - listening to some playlists while doing homework

    6. Re:I'm on Youtube all day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you have more control over you content... There are minimum ads. ...

      i am on youtube all day too!!

    7. Re:I'm on Youtube all day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I actually put videos on the lowest available bandwidth and then toss them in the background to listen. (Or onto the second monitor if I'm at home.) And audio-only option would be lovely but what can you do?

    8. Re:I'm on Youtube all day by sad_ · · Score: 1

      why not just listen to spotify? it's free as well (with add, but you get those with youtube now too).

      --
      On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
    9. Re:I'm on Youtube all day by BlackPignouf · · Score: 1

      No you don't, at least not with mublock origin.

    10. Re:I'm on Youtube all day by BlackPignouf · · Score: 1

      An audiophile friend of mine told me the sound is much cleaner when the hidden tab on firefox displays 4K video.

  20. Re:One Billion Hours of YouTube Are Watched Every by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

    What a waste of time

    --
    Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
  21. according to youtube... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    it would take over 100,000 years. Also, according to simple maths...

  22. Sounds quite impossible by wvmarle · · Score: 3, Informative

    According to YouTube they have about 1 billion unique users a month. So if all were using YouTube every day, that would mean on average one hour of YouTube watching every single day. Still quite possible, but only if those users all visit YouTube every day, and it's an average, so many people watch much more than that. For me, few days pass without YouTube but normally not more than 5-10 minutes or so, mostly linked from my Facebook news feed, and sometimes tutorials and so. More than an hour in a day is rare.

    However, according to this web site, some 30 million users use YouTube every day, and 6 billion hours a month. I don't know where they get their statistics, but the daily total is only 1/5 of the YouTube statistic given above. 30 million a day is indeed nearly 1 billion a month, so that's a sensible number, based on how you count "unique users", of course. Many of those will be repeat users. Anyway, at 30 million visitors a day, each visitor has to watch 33.3 hours of video a day. That's impossible - at least in my world, where a day contains just 24 hours. If that number is also off by a factor of 5, it'd be nearly 7 hours a day, on average. Even with a full zero missing for the daily visitors number, it'd be on average over 3 hours of video per user.

    No matter how I try to look at this number, it just doesn't make sense.

    1. Re:Sounds quite impossible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      lol shut the fuck up nerdy

    2. Re:Sounds quite impossible by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      I am one of many who watch YouTube for many hours a day. Err did I saw watch? I meant listen. I typically disk in some video which has a many hour mix of music with a still image in the background and then minimise.

      I'm sure I'm not the only one but I will easily clock more than 6 hours a day, and that's not taking into account watching TV series or other things on you tube. Entire seasons of robot chicken, QI most of the entertainment stuff from HBO, the amount of content on the which can replace TV viewing is incredible.

    3. Re:Sounds quite impossible by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      A more appropriate and on-topic reply would have been NERD!

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
  23. Ah, that's where the black hole from LHC went... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Has no-one figured that YouTube must have implemented some kind of black-hole type of storage??
    That's about 400 GB per minute uploaded to their servers (assuming a reasonable average of 1 GB per hour of video) or about 576 TB of new storage per day.

  24. In other words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1 Billion hours worth of nonproductive time wasted.

  25. obligatory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    In Trump's America, Youtube watches you!

  26. Thanks autoplay! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If they actually count the time people are actually at the computer its 32 seconds the rest is all autoplay doing stuff for shit and giggles. Also just because youtube do it doesn't mean every other fuckin site in the world has to copy them.

  27. Challenge accepted by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve · · Score: 1

    If you were to sit and watch a billion hours of YouTube, it would take you over 100,000 years.

    Eh, I bet I can do that in 60,000 years, tops.

  28. If it's even close to accurate, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    then we're too entertained. If we had to face reality squarely each day, perhaps people would think and care a bit more about other people instead of drowning their boredom in yet more entertainment.

    But probably we wouldn't.

  29. Advertising ? by redelm · · Score: 1

    Does this include those pesky video ads included on web-pages to slow them down? Or are they served from elsewhere (not embedded)?

  30. "discovering great music" by PeeAitchPee · · Score: 1

    I wonder how much of this is uploads of copyrighted RIAA music? It seems to be a 50-50 split to me of bootleg concert footage and illicit rips. Not that I care, but YouTube is one of the main platforms that millennials use to consume their content, including music, so it's interesting to see where this is going or if / when the RIAA will start screaming for everything to be taken down as they continue to become less relevant.

    1. Re:"discovering great music" by Gilgaron · · Score: 1

      They get their cut of the ads and seem to have given up, as far as I can tell. A number of labels put up official videos as it is.

  31. The real question by sunking2 · · Score: 1

    How many are watched all the way through? Or even more than 15s.

    1. Re:The real question by l20502 · · Score: 1

      If you're using ublock origin or the notwork monitor you'll notice that the youtube player regularly sends back playback status and events

  32. Back in the day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I was able to get dependable work updating the "Over NN Billion Served" signs on the McDonald's restaurants in the local area.

    Then they brought in these H1-B people. Boo!

  33. No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    They get streamed. Embedded videos are counted, they are everwhere, and they auto play. The average user has no idea what is going on or how to stop it. This as disengenuous as a lot of advertising click-through data. Whatever, try again, Silicon Valley. Someday they will realize when it's too late that big data is actually a false friend and not to be relied on in it's gross misrepresentations of reality.

  34. Re: One Billion Hours of YouTube Are Watched Every by pr0fessor · · Score: 1

    There are plenty of tv shows available on youtube between my wife and tv shows and my son with game reviews, walk throughs, and video playlists he pops on to listen to but not watch I would say my household is close 6 hours for two people.

  35. Re:Ah, that's where the black hole from LHC went.. by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    They might as well buy Western Digital, Seagate and/or Toshiba at this point.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  36. tubalcain by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

    My favorite YouTube videos at the moment are the ones by machinists. I have no aptitude or experience in this area, but for some reason I find it relaxing to watch machinists work while describing what they're doing. I also have no plans to actually do any machinist stuff, but I find the videos absorbing. I also like to watch fishing videos even though I do not fish.

    Here's one that's particularly meditative for me. It's well-known YouTube machinist "tubalcain" giving a tour of his tool box.

    https://youtu.be/rvM_SRrvvHo

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:tubalcain by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      I also have no plans to actually do any machinist stuff, but I find the videos absorbing.

      Harbor freight has a small desktop lathe that's supposed to be quite good. And a desktop mill that you install under a drill press, which is also supposed to be pretty good if you take it apart and de-burr it like they should have. Maybe it would be an entertaining hobby. I mean, what are you going to do when Slashdot finally implodes?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:tubalcain by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      I mean, what are you going to do when Slashdot finally implodes?

      I will fall to my knees in the sand and cry, “YOU BLEW IT UP! DAMN YOU! GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!”

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  37. Big deal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are 7 billion people on the planet. If only one billion has access to the internet, that makes one hour a day per person. I wonder how many of these "hours" radio and TV had every day back in the 1960s?

    I'd bet it was more!

  38. In other words by fredrated · · Score: 1

    the biggest time waster since time began.

  39. Staggering amount of bandwidth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    720p30 h264 video with reasonable audio ends up being roughly 1-1.5GiB/hour. We'll just say 1.5GiB since it's probably the case that it's skewed toward the upper end since I think people mostly want better quality video if it's available or the best quality that their connection will tolerate. I'm sure a lot of those hours are on lower resolutions and a lot are on higher resolutions.

    At 1.5GiB an hour, we'd be looking at 1.5 billion GiB per day. Puts us roughly around 1.4EiB per day. I can only imagine what kind of infrastructure you'd need to make that work.

  40. Lots of hours, lots of years. by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    Don't sleep, the clowns will eat me.

  41. Sorry its me. by downright · · Score: 1

    I'm just downloading a local copy for my flight.

  42. Best part is I never see YouTube ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

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  43. Okay Okay... by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

    I can take a hint, time to get back to work.

    --
    I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
  44. DeDup the videos to get correct # of hours by peter9203 · · Score: 1

    It's not true that "If you were to sit and watch a billion hours of YouTube, it would take you over 100,000 years." YouTube did not DeDup the videos; if the billion hours were all of one video, then it would only take an hour to watch those billion hours. A more interesting take would be how many different videos are watched (w and w/o porn). Sometimes
    1) repetition would be interesting (most popular cat video, or porn), and
    2) maybe some scientific or how-to videos are important even if they are only seen a few times, since they are like entries in a dictionary that are rarely looked at, but vital for completeness

  45. one billion hours every day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Divide that into 24hours, and it isn't much at all