You may have heard a lot of different things going on in the past week or two about what's been happening with YouTube. Some things are myth, some things are true. We're going to talk about the huge updates, so let's actually get into it.
The View Drop Mystery: Separating Fact from Fiction
There's been somewhat of a myth floating around that a lot of the bigger YouTube channels like Linus Tech Tips and Markiplier have claimed they've noticed a significant drop-off in viewers. This led to an outcry that YouTube was shadow banning creators or changing the algorithm without letting creators know beforehand.
This brought a lot of people to speculate about a feature called "restricted mode" in your YouTube settings. Now this has actually been disproven since this feature has been in place since around 2010. It's been available for many years, but this kind of set the ball rolling with creators saying their views had disappeared or been cut by 50% because of this feature. Many creators instantly jumped on this myth without actually doing any research. Yes, if you turn restricted mode on, most of your videos disappear, but that wasn't the actual cause of the issue.
The Real Culprit: Ad Blockers
It came out probably a week later (though in the creator space, several days feels like an eternity) that the issue was actually ad blockers like uBlock Origin and others. These were causing problems where YouTube wasn't recording views for people using ad blockers. This goes back to the ongoing cat and mouse game between YouTube and ad blocker companies.
In my personal opinion, I say use ad blockers because even the FBI has posted recommendations for the public to use ad blockers when browsing the internet. A lot of times you can get your computer infected with malware from malicious ads that get posted in website feeds or while watching ads on YouTube.
YouTube has been playing this back and forth game for the past couple years, punishing viewers for using ad blockers because it's against their terms of service. The problem is that the number of ads and their length have only increased over the years, creating a more user-hostile environment.
I know a lot of other creators are completely against ad blockers, and everyone is entitled to their opinion. My view is that you shouldn't really rely on ad revenue on YouTube, but if you do, that's your choice.
The Numbers Don't Lie
Linus Tech Tips showed actual numbers from their WAN show displaying how their views were down, but interestingly, their likes and ad revenue were actually up. Josh Strife Plays posted a video showing that when this YouTube fiasco with ad blockers happened on August 10th, his numbers revealed that mobile and PC viewing were pretty much in line before that date. But on August 10th and afterward, desktop views were way below mobile views.
This makes sense because people watching on mobile typically won't have an ad blocker running on their phone, but if you use an ad blocker, it's usually on your PC or computer. The numbers got skewed with desktop views being low while mobile views remained at normal or higher rates.
YouTube came back and pretty much confirmed this was because of ad blockers, though they haven't directly stated it. An article from 9to5Google noted that over the past month, many YouTubers reported major drops in video view counts, and theories ran wild, but the ad blocker explanation makes the most sense.
This was big drama on YouTube for a good week or two. Everyone was making videos saying their viewers were down, all caused by various theories. It's something where a lot of people jump the gun. They see another creator posting a video saying "this is the reason why X causes Y" and then they jump to create a video as well. We'll see if people retract those videos or make corrected statements.
Major YouTube Updates You Should Know About
What I actually wanted to talk about are the updates YouTube has made. They've introduced some major changes for live streaming and the general platform.
Live Streaming Improvements
YouTube has been kind of pushing live streaming aside to give their "little brother" Shorts some time in the limelight for a couple years. But now they've made several important updates:
Practice Before Going Live: You can now test your setup with no risk before going live. Other platforms like Twitch have had this capability where you can run a test stream to see if your internet is up to snuff or if anything is going wrong before actually going live.
Playables on Live: These were introduced last year as fun interactive experiences with lightweight games like Angry Birds Showdown and Cutthroat that you can play during your live stream.
Streaming Across Formats: This is one of the big things I'm really excited about. You can have horizontal and vertical streams in one studio window, and the chat from both live streams is integrated into one chat window. This isn't out yet, but it's coming within weeks or months. Previously, you would need two streaming encoders going at the same time and two chat windows to keep up with both sides. Thank you YouTube for integrating this into one studio window.
The only thing I didn't see is if they made changes to how chat defaults to "top chat," which is stupid. It should automatically be live chat as the only option because if you're in top chat, there might be occasions where you'll never see someone's chat message. That person might think you're ignoring them and just leave.
AI-Powered Features
AI Highlights: This feature finds the most compelling moments from your live stream and automatically creates ready-to-share Shorts. After your live stream ends, AI will go through your content (if you allow it) and create highlights or clips. You can edit them and then publish them on YouTube.
This is similar to what Riverside FM, Descript, Opus Clips, CapCut, and other services offer, but this will be baked into YouTube itself using their Gemini AI system.
Monetization Updates
Side-by-Side Ads: YouTube knows creators are often hesitant to run ads that interrupt key moments during streams because they're very disruptive. The new side-by-side ads are supposedly less intrusive while helping creators get paid without pulling their audience away.
I'm wondering how this will actually work. On Twitch, when ads run during a stream, the ad takes over and the streamer is put into a small box above chat, muted, while the ad plays. With YouTube's side-by-side format, I'm assuming the ad plays with audio while the stream is muted, which doesn't really change much since the stream is still being interrupted. We'll have to see how this works out.
Seamless Member Transitions: There's a new feature that allows creators to easily transition from a public stream to a members-only live stream without disruption. Previously, you'd have to cut off the stream and start a separate members-only stream. Now it will be more seamless, moving your audience from public to members-only within the same stream.
Feeling Overwhelmed? There Are Alternatives
With all these changes involving AI, increasing ads, and years of focus on Shorts, you might be feeling overwhelmed or done with YouTube. I've talked about alternatives in the past, and there are options:
PeerTube is a free, open-source system where you can self-host or join an instance that has openings for people to upload videos.
Makerspace is designed for makers, artists, woodworkers, craftspeople, and similar creators.
TILvids focuses on edutainment content, and you can find our content from the indie creator community there as well.
I do have to mention that if you use an alternative, you won't have the same results because these alternatives are extremely small compared to YouTube's potential audience. You'll need to weigh the pros and cons of what you're looking for and take your time to figure out what you want to do.
Wrapping Up
These YouTube updates represent significant changes to the platform, especially for live streaming. While some improvements are welcome, the ongoing issues with ad blockers, increasing ads, and AI integration may leave some creators looking for alternatives.
If you're interested in joining our community of independent creators, check out indiecreator.community. It's a forum open to all independent artists, creators, and anybody looking for alternative platforms. We share blogs, podcast episodes, videos, and connect like-minded people.
Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time. Later taters.
Recommended Comments