I and many others have noticed this. This has been discussed a lot on forums. There were 3 main changes made in Q4 of 2023 1. TH-cam now does not notify all subscribers of your uploads, even with the all notification bell on. They only notify people who've watched a video of yours in the last 2-3 months, thus leaving out a majority of your old following. This is done so that youtubers start paying for promotion. And so now makes your hard earned sub count redundant. 2. The algorithm now favours viewer retention much more over watch time. Hence the people creating heavily edited videos with a lot of jump cuts like mrbeat get pushed. But people with more organic pacing don't. 3. TH-cam promoting shorts more to compete with tiktok. Now fewer viewers are getting into the long form content side of yt. And not to mention, pushing shorts have resulted them in making lower profits because of less monetizability of shorts. So now they are trying to scrape every penny they can find. It's pretty sad how such an amazing platform is going down this route.
Shorts is a huge part of this problem. Zucky boy realised this early and reverted back a little bit from pushing reels back to regular content. They even issued a statement on this thing. Shorts/reels in the long run is a useless venture. They know it very well but still keep up with it to get the tiktok kids onboard.
@@nextlevel5265watch time is the length of the video, watch time is the attention span of the viewer for that particular video. Since most of our attention spans are crippled to barely 5-10 min on long form content due to short form video doom scrolling, ad policies are changed to.
The phenomenon has nothing to do with ads. The reality is the death of the concept of "follower" and the rise of "viral" content, which was initiated by Tiktok and then implemented by all platforms: Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Spotify. They prioritize discovery and exponential growth, on a video-per-video basis, so subscribers weigh much less. The most engaging content is pushed exponentially more, so this leads "normal" videos to get far less views.
Hi, thanks for posting this. I felt this was going on, but I had no way of proving what I was getting. Like many TH-camrs, I don't know any other creators I can talk to. I called support to explain what was going on with my channel in the hope they would explain what you just said. Instead, they told me it was my fault; viewers were not that interested in my content. I knew it wasn't true, but nevertheless, it bothered me. If they continue on the same path, TH-cam as we know it will die (dying), not the creators. My prediction.
@@FatBassterds there subs where paid for look at his channel and sort videos by popular look at date and views they buy views and have fake subs and youtube is cracking down on that
There's way too many 'youtubers' as is. Especially, visible in guitar community - tens of same channels doing the same promo reviews of the same products; same selling points, same format. It starts to remind basic cable tv channels of the 90s, but much more oriented on product placement...
As of 2024 approximately 8% of all TH-cam channels will reach 1K subscribers. Think about this. It took me four years to reach 1K subscribers. finally hit it this past summer June 2024. I'm in TH-cam partner program. There's a lot of background stuff the big channels do that small channels like us are not aware of and or can't afford to do. TH-cam will never admit it. Grrrrrrr.
I start a new TH-cam channel last month on 22 September 2024, and in the 30 days I went from 0 subscribers to 988 subscribers, 7,8k watch hours and 79k views in total and I was only posting long format videos
Call me old fashioned, but youtube was FAR better when nobody cared about making money, or advertising, or branding or any of that corporate garbage, it was better when people just made videos for the hell of it
Super useful insights. Thank you! It’s been a real struggle since I’ve started to posting videos in 2023. Some of my videos have thousands views but my subscribers just don’t grow. I love creating contents but I’m frustrated at the same time.
Every second month Ken Tamplin, the superstar miming meme of 2024, gains 10000 subscribers. Exactly 10000. Maybe paying for subscribers is super common to make your channel appear more popular than it is.
This is a video every small/mid sized youtuber should see. Fantastic breakdown. I suppose this is why alot of larger youtubers advocate for building a community off youtube as quickly as possible.
Could this whole thing lead to the death of TH-cam? Is it just one more nail in TH-cam's coffin? If things get bad enough-- If the censoring gets bad enough, if life gets tough enough for the content creators, those creators will go elsewhere as will premium viewers like myself. (and of course when I refer to the content creators I'm talking about the organic creators like yourself not the mainstream media)!
Sounds pretty much like it to me. I'm spending a lot of time watching stuff on here meanwhile but the moment it starts to behave like Instagram and just push promoted content and advertorials into your face most of the time, I'll do the same thing and not spend much time on the platform anymore. Plus, you can make a good deal of money by selling slots on your show if you go on an OTT TV platform, at least if your audience is a bit older. It costs some money but probably not as much as you'll need to get decent views on TH-cam pretty soon and you own your stuff, aren't subjected to random penalties, algorithm changes etc. And then, there are free platforms like TT too if you can't invest at all and are okay with shorter formats. Don't think it's smart of TH-cam to go down this road in the long run but let's see.
@@DrSusanneKurz Yes, I think there will be more and more rewarding alternatives for TH-cam in the future of this crap keeps going. But it is too much kind of ironic if old-fashioned TV, once replaced by TH-cam, suddenly replaces TH-cam. 😂😂
Why do you think they brought the criteria 1000 subs 4000 watch hours in in 2018? And why do you think that 36 million creators are trying to get monetized unsuccessful for years often? Because while you believe you are a pathetic content creator but maybe your next video is going to be the 'going viral' video and therefor do not give up, TH-cam takes 100% of the ad revenue of of all the ads they run on all the struggling channels. So TH-cam will keep its knee on our necks for as long as it can get away with it and that can be indefinitely as it is sitting in the driver seat.
Fancy seeing you here sonet! 😂 It would be good if these gigantic organisations were transparent so we knew what we were getting into rather than just living on hope.
@@SimoneWhippArtistthat is the whole idea Simone. TH-cam is creating the hope and keeping it alive with these random token complimentary blow up videos they afford small beginner channels, just to fall back on the exact low views your videos have received before the 'viral' video. But that is the hook. People are plundering forward in the hope that their next video is going to be the viral video. How many small beginner channel creators would have bowed out much sooner from this algorithm circus if it was not for this clever little tactic that TH-cam came up with, destroying thoudands of peoples' lives and mental health. They should actually be held accountable for it.
I'm annoyed to see ads playing on my small channel videos when I am not monetized & I'm not seen in search despite all efforts at fixing my hashtags & keywords.
I actually thought about boosting a video by paying for it but yeah, if you’re not gonna be able to make any revenue from that once you’re monetized, that’s something you have to weigh out.
I feel the same way, thank God I'm not desperate to be monetized but the views encourage the motivation to invest that much time and energy to Create content 😢
I don’t think this will be a serious detriment in the long run. What’s more detrimental is the loss of fair use in playing cover songs, the copyright strikes and the rising prevelence of Chinese companies stealing original music from TH-camrs and then putting a copyright strike on the original artist’s music.
It's crazy how much time you have to put into creating weekly videos in order to get paid for your efforts. At one level I get it. You have weed out the worst of the worst. Still,it works out really good for YT. Especially since 90% of the videos on YT didn't cost them anything.
Definitely TH-cam has been hostile to music channels for a while. I've noticed whatever gets places on YT recommendations is what performs, and thats completely luck of the draw, youll see it in the first hour or two, if your vid is featured on YT recommendations it will do well typically, but that's not based on viewer retention or anything, it's luck of the draw, I see it with my own videos. They also play favourites, I did several "firsts", other channel comes along, copies the same idea and gets expontentially more views.
Yeah. TH-camrs quitting YT. it matches what I see lately. And even big, over 1M channels.... Guess it was unavoidable. A flower cannot stay fresh forever.
I think the underlying reason is the same with politics; people are rapidly getting burned out with the whole thing. TH-cam itself is only about 20 years old, and the TH-camr podcast phenomenon at it's peak is less than ten years old. For me personally, I'm sick of it all because what people say doesn't matter much anymore to many. And also there's a lot of misinformation out there in order to get more views.
Yeah I agree. Hence my relationship with TH-cam is deliberately kept at arms length so I can see it for what it is (it has so far been a great tool to build an audience ) and not self identify with it
I had already wondered if this could happen. It certainly explains a lot. Finally someone tells it like it is. And it is just depressing. Guess I was just too late to the party. Sigh.
I struggle with this every day as I honestly didn't get into YT Content Creation to make money, it came with extra time from retirement. Then my subscribers started asking for memberships in the comments, BUT almost nobody subscribed and I didn't feel right even with my highest sub under $5 keeping someone from seeing something... yea I know, I know, then it was well why not monetize at least I can buy a guitar book to show my subscribers...and on and on and on this has gone, and actually taken away from the enjoyment of being retired and just wanting to give back... I just quit worrying about i and stopped trying to CHURN out videos and do a once a week tip and and once a week talk. I've had the channel about 8 months with over 1000+ subs and I've made a $153... SO "We're in the money". LOL! You nailed it on what is going on, but I'll just keep trying to help as my way of giving back until my subs fall below 1K or this or that happens, but I can do that, UNLIKE the many really trying to make a living. Good realistic video as always.
Have to say, when life is busy and YT isn't your 'day job', publishing content to diminishing returns is very disheartening. I get it, quality and value have to be at a certain level for people to watch, and you have to work on improving your content, but if only professionally-made videos get pushed, then YT will just become another cable TV.
Might be good to clean out some content producers to be honest. Too many people want only to make money from it which affects the quality of the video. I notice a lot of ai voice generated videos with a click bait title and a 20 minute read of wikipedia telling you nothing new. Getting harder to find good content, I sometimes question my premium subscription, except I find TH-cam Music handy.
No! It's not! Anytime you hear "WORK HARDER" it's complete BS! "Work harder" simply means drudgery/slavery. They get more work from you as you get less money from them. I'm disabled. I need an income. But working harder is not an option for me. I can't even handle 1 stream of income.
Makes perfect sense. My channel was doing good. I'm just getting to 6000 subs and was averaging 10k views a video then all of a sudden my channel crashed about a month ago. Can barely get a thousand views.
A friend sent me this in a private group and you are spot on here. My channel is experiencing the same issues. It's good to see someone is honest here. Appreciate this. DiBrava
TH-cam also made it harder to get monetized. My music channel needs like a half a million hours of watch time to get monetized, and we have 1-3 minute song videos. That means, yeah you guessed it: I would need to make over a million songs to get monetized, or my songs would have to get an organic 200,000,000 views per song. Before I bought ads for the songs, we got maybe 5-50 views per video. Now I pay $20 on TH-cam for 'audience growth', and $20 in Google Ads for video views on all Google platforms to come to TH-cam and watch. I started this back in June and now we have 5k subs, up from 38 before the ads. I can only pay $40/month for ads, one song a month, and that buys exactly 20,000 views. Imagine if I paid $1,000 per video, like Veritasium science channel does, with 2 mil views per video, which is absolutely fraudulent - not that many people are interested in science on the whole planet, yet there is his viewership per video.
I think the idea of seeing TH-cam as a career may not be a good idea. TH-cam is just a channel where you can get your message out and try something new. One can look at alternate channels too. In off line wolrd you dont have the platform or audience to try a hustle or share you ideas or provide service or value. Money making is not the only objective, one needs to build.a body or work and experi3nce to become a trusted personal brand which then translates in to a business, consulting, coaching, etc.
No idea why this came up on my feed. I’m an old broke down cowboy who makes dodgy vids with his horse. But found vid fascinating and insightful old mate. Cheers. As an aside, my wife and I have had many vacations in Singapore. Top holiday destination 👍🐴🐴🐴
In short: TH-cam is killing TH-cam. Which is sad because it has become such a great place rich of valuable content from so many angles. But this sounds like we'll mainly see advertorial videos in the future - and, frankly, the number of ads has gone out of hand across the board during the past couple of years across the board anyway, not just on TH-cam. Or we'll have to scroll past all the promoted content IF they tell us it's promoted. And anyone who can invest a little bit but not enough to satiate the growing hunger of the platform can go off to OTT TV platforms and make money off their shows pretty much from day 1 because they get a lot more views for their money right away. Plus, no issues with random penalties.
Yea man, noticed this as soon as they released the promote tab in YT Studio. They pay almost nothing in Ad revenue and now trying to capitalise off small channels who are trying to grow. GREED!
I had a growing organic views audience until YT tanked long format views when it came out with Shorts. That's when I started paying. It costs but it doesn't cost much. I've got a job and my expenses are very low. My poem videos were no candidate for monetization because of their niche and short duration but I support them the way another would support their children. I know they're good, and I know you'll know they're good. & they're just going to get better.
Hey Y'all from Nashville TN!! In the music industry, songwriters and singers all pay "pluggers" to promote their music.... As you can imagine, the rich kids get heavily promoted, such as Taylor Swift.... I am a small channel, but I switched to a less competitive niche, retirement planning, and focused on making something unique ( sexy videos on social security!!)....After, reading these comments, I will pay to promote, but within my budget..... As TH-camrs, we need to focus on other ways to make money, sponsorship, blogging, coaching, e-books, and e-courses. It is the "wild west" and so many ways to make money!! Weeding a bunch of channels, will only help the content creators that truly add value...
On a related topic, Ebay does the same thing they now force to buy ads to promote your product or they will not let you get any views and in this new system the views for top products that would get the maximum views if you listed it now just get a trickle down effect -small sellers will disappear because they won’t be able to afford to pay for these ads. For example I just sold a used pair of shoes for $79 and Ebay took over almost $30 out of that sale if you can imagine selling a used pair of shoes and then having to pay item and then pay almost half the profit to Ebay-Ebay has done things like this in the past and lost all their small sellers and then they had to entice them back in-it’s probably a shareholder profit thing just like what you’re talking about with TH-cam, but it’s killing the small creators and the small sellers that make TH-cam and eBay great-these companies get so big they implode on themselves and go under
TH-cam wants to be a boring platform. TH-cam wants channels to do only one thing over and over and over again. TH-cam does not like variety channels. It confuses the all almighty algorithm.
Well noticed. Here are a few other observations: 1. You need to boost videos. It is expensive. 2. Boost doesn't equate to a good number of views 3. Even if you boost through YT, your views can eventually still drop
1. Oh yes, it is expensive. 2. It gives quite a lot of views BUT 99% the target audience are mostly the wrong audiences. Dont expect them to subscribe our channel, let alone coming back to any of our videos. 3. Never experience it, sorry for your loss. Avoid using Boost from the channel's YT Studio. If we really want to spend the money, use Google Ads, set them all MANUALLY. YT Promotions doesn't know where and to who to "boost/promote" our video. Our cooking channels might ended up "promoted" to gaming channels audiences whom are never ever watch or care about cooking at all.
Views to Subscriber ratios have dropped across the board considerably to about 5-10% views of your subs. Even larger channels have seen this dramatic drop in the last 12-18 months. In my space (history content), large channels like Mark Felton Productions are getting about 10% with occassionally breaking into 20-30%, and here's more stats: The Armchair Historian channel would get close to 50% ratio a year ago. Now down to 10-15%. Another channel called World War Two used to get 40-50% ratio a year ago... now about 4% to 10%. Why is this happening? Those channel had organic growth and should still have similar viewership. In the music space, I follow Rick Beato. His subs are well over 4.5 million, and he gets about 8% views to subs now. WHY? Arguably he had music strikes, etc. but wonder what caused the huge decline. My only guess is that shorts have killed a lot of channels. And... people are not watching as much due to annoying ads pop ups or having to pay a subscription. I also think the way YT would suggest videos has dramatically changed. I don't even get notifications anymore on new videos on channels I am subscribed.
100% agree with this. My friends video was boosted and there was lots of views, with Less likes. But the day Google Ads stopped views came down crashing to ZERO 😮💨😡
It's my opinion that we're seeing the results of major old school media outlets realizing their traditional methods are failing, realizing their streaming ventures are also failing, and now starting to open up to TH-cam as a viable alternative to Netflix. That's why if you have also noticed ALOT of the videos that have been promoted more and more are those made by major studios like Disney, NBC and the like instead of traditional channels, unless the channel pays for it that is.
If this is what is coming, then it paints a bleak future for small channels, and future youtube creators. This is not a good sign not one bit. It is becoming somewhat like an Orwellian nightmare.
I think with enough dedication and effort you can still build a large following completely organically. It just might take a little while but I see other TH-camrs all the time showing their results of when they finally started building a big channel and earning money from AdSense. Sure TH-cam will always prefer that you pay but if you're making entertaining content the views will come. It just takes time so no, I don't think it's as extreme as you're making it out to be. Paying for views is a waste of money anyways, having done that trying to grow a music channel that way. And what did it get me in return? Fucking NOTHING.
I've been noticing this for several years on TH-cam they change their algorithim to favour long form content. Many high quality small creators have been steadily declining.
You are right!.. i noticed that like 2-3 months ago.. it has really become a market place..so many new faces, everyone copying each other's title and description.. posting videos per hours.. it's no longer original and tangible
I’m on my 3rd week and got up to 41 subs but lost 3 over the last couple days … it’s ok tho I’m patient and still enjoying my channel and the people I’m meeting 😊
I've noticed that it has unsubscribed me from several channels, including some that I watch frequently. I have to wonder if have been doing this to my channel, as well.
@LetsGoChaseThatTrain of course it does. I often gain 2 subscribers just to wake up the next morning to a loss of 3. Weird timing is it not? It always seems to coincide.
This is really interesting. I trying to run a kids channel,. There's no money in it anyway but I enjoy doing them. As a test I made 3 videos, more or less the same, I used different music, different animals that sort of thing. 1 video got 1.500 views, the 2nd 50, and the third 20. TH-cam simply isn't pushing them. The impressions on the 1st one were about 2000 but the other 2 were much lower. So not only can I monetize my channel, but kids are not getting to enjoy them.
You raise some interesting points in this episode that remind me of the problem with the Google search engine; they essentially killed the goose that laid the golden egg. In the beginning, a search returned a long list of results that began with the most likely ones and worked its way through to the more obscure. It was often the case that the obscure results were what I was looking for. Now it seems all I get from Google searches are page after page of the same results over and over again and the obscure results are not to be found. I assume this devolution is a result of over capitalizing the product. That is precisely why I rarely use the Google search engine anymore. In the case of TH-cam, when users no longer find the type and quality of the content they desire, then TH-cam will have killed their golden goose too. I will hunt for content using: + the search engine, + the list of "you may also like" videos that are pushed with each video, and + the channels that the content creators I follow list on their TH-cam channels until I find a channel that meets my personal subscription criteria. I typically only watch TH-cam content that I am subscribed to and only add a few new subscriptions a year while deleting about the same amount. I delete a subscription if the content creator stops putting up new content or the content no longer meets my personal criteria. I rarely watch anything being pushed into my face by TH-cam and can only assume I don't fit the profile of whom they are attempting to reach.
I also thought similarly/ but tracking some channels and talking to multiple people in the space indicated otherwise. Of course there is no official communication on this. Why would there be
Over my lifetime, all creators eventually...cease. For whatever reason, there is a peak creativity and factors internal and external reduce your activity over time. If you graphed it, for quantity/quality over time, it would be a perfect bell curve. For EVERYONE. Since the beginning of time.
I don't pay anything to promote my channel - no wonder I can't even get 500 subscribers in more than 2 years! I never get seen! I don't have funds to pay to be seen either. How sad that the world hasn't changed in that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. 😥
You are just refusing to understand that the competition has increased a lot. So what worked half a year ago will not work now because the audience's drop in attention span requires more quality to hold than before
Ha! I just started one (on a different account) a few weeks ago. Do it for fun with no expectations. Who knows - you may get lucky. I'm focusing on making better content and learning more about editing than the whole thumbnail/title piece. And - of course I'm getting only a handful of views.
I am certainly rethinking all my time wasted at this. We work for them for free. All the channels not yet monetized but they put ads on. That is an in credible incentive to keep 92% of channels from ever becoming monetized!!
apart from trends & advertising marketing, TH-cam may eventually reduce its content available based on this cost, and as a result will also see a subsequent drop in premium subscribers. Shareholding I understand, and YT is a best platform to promote products, but what do you do with the hobbyists sharing ideas, gamers same. It will ultimately strangle YT, and TikTok picking up the slack as they venture into areas where YT loses creators & custom. Being big doesn't guarantee security in a digital world where people want diversity, but not necessarily pay for it. YT are brilliant at what they deliver, but the algorithm is not the small channels friend.
You are correct, I can get 50k views for any video that I pay for advertising. All of my other videos get 500 plays, then nothing. I have 4 videos with advertising money ... they get 10x the views of my other videos. So now I have to decide whether/how much to pay to have more views consistently. Apparently, if you want real exposure now, it will cost $$$.
A lot of guitar youtubers just do commercials for the product they are selling. I am all for making money but give us something to watch. Not a click bait video or a short just to say buy my what ever course. Dont give it all away for free but nothing for free isnt the way to go. Greed is killing youtubers that used to educate maybe they should treat youtube as a part time job and just get a real full time job at this point.
It was inevitable. My business sells a lot on eBay. Listings used to be ranked based on quality, reputation seller, sales history etc. now you have to pay to promote your listings against your competitors if you want to be seen.
I and many others have noticed this. This has been discussed a lot on forums.
There were 3 main changes made in Q4 of 2023
1. TH-cam now does not notify all subscribers of your uploads, even with the all notification bell on. They only notify people who've watched a video of yours in the last 2-3 months, thus leaving out a majority of your old following. This is done so that youtubers start paying for promotion. And so now makes your hard earned sub count redundant.
2. The algorithm now favours viewer retention much more over watch time. Hence the people creating heavily edited videos with a lot of jump cuts like mrbeat get pushed. But people with more organic pacing don't.
3. TH-cam promoting shorts more to compete with tiktok. Now fewer viewers are getting into the long form content side of yt. And not to mention, pushing shorts have resulted them in making lower profits because of less monetizability of shorts. So now they are trying to scrape every penny they can find.
It's pretty sad how such an amazing platform is going down this route.
Shorts is a huge part of this problem. Zucky boy realised this early and reverted back a little bit from pushing reels back to regular content. They even issued a statement on this thing. Shorts/reels in the long run is a useless venture. They know it very well but still keep up with it to get the tiktok kids onboard.
Sorry if this seems like an unhinged rant. But maybe it is in some way lol.
Thanks for laying out the changes so clearly. Very helpful
What’s the difference between viewer retention and watch time?
@@nextlevel5265watch time is the length of the video, watch time is the attention span of the viewer for that particular video. Since most of our attention spans are crippled to barely 5-10 min on long form content due to short form video doom scrolling, ad policies are changed to.
TH-cam is killing youtube
What?! Google killing a resource valued and used by millions? Like that's a surprise. "Google Graveyard"
At last there's an honest person who tells the truth
The algorithm is killing small channels
@@Barry-the-Bee-quiz That pesky Algorithm.. Always telling us to do all these things and then pull in the rug out from under us when we do them.
It's really frustrating
💯
@@Mr.KickBall Have to keep on keeping on
Just keep going doing what you do best. What you love , don’t give up.
The phenomenon has nothing to do with ads. The reality is the death of the concept of "follower" and the rise of "viral" content, which was initiated by Tiktok and then implemented by all platforms: Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Spotify. They prioritize discovery and exponential growth, on a video-per-video basis, so subscribers weigh much less. The most engaging content is pushed exponentially more, so this leads "normal" videos to get far less views.
Absolutely true 💯
TH-cam isn't fun anymore.
TH-cam is dead. TikTok is where it’s at
@@DarkHorrorStoryTime TikTok is just as evil as TH-cam.
Hi, thanks for posting this. I felt this was going on, but I had no way of proving what I was getting. Like many TH-camrs, I don't know any other creators I can talk to.
I called support to explain what was going on with my channel in the hope they would explain what you just said. Instead, they told me it was my fault; viewers were not that interested in my content. I knew it wasn't true, but nevertheless, it bothered me.
If they continue on the same path, TH-cam as we know it will die (dying), not the creators. My prediction.
Sounds like the digital version of the haves and the have nots.
I also noticed that and stopped producing content despite having 30K subs. My friend has 700K subs and has also stopped producing content
So how much did the views go down for both of you
@@FatBassterds there subs where paid for look at his channel and sort videos by popular look at date and views they buy views and have fake subs and youtube is cracking down on that
Very sad
There's way too many 'youtubers' as is. Especially, visible in guitar community - tens of same channels doing the same promo reviews of the same products; same selling points, same format. It starts to remind basic cable tv channels of the 90s, but much more oriented on product placement...
Exact. In the last month too many distortion pedals, modelers etc ... More in one month than the last 10 years
As of 2024 approximately 8% of all TH-cam channels will reach 1K subscribers. Think about this. It took me four years to reach 1K subscribers. finally hit it this past summer June 2024. I'm in TH-cam partner program.
There's a lot of background stuff the big channels do that small channels like us are not aware of and or can't afford to do. TH-cam will never admit it.
Grrrrrrr.
I agree with the background stuff.
I start a new TH-cam channel last month on 22 September 2024, and in the 30 days I went from 0 subscribers to 988 subscribers, 7,8k watch hours and 79k views in total and I was only posting long format videos
👍 @@kevinreezygaming
the new increase in prem price made me ditch premium, thats for sure - INSANE PRICING
It's the same as Amazon. Today if you want your product(s) to be promoted high on the search page you need to invest heavily in sponsored product ads.
Call me old fashioned, but youtube was FAR better when nobody cared about making money, or advertising, or branding or any of that corporate garbage, it was better when people just made videos for the hell of it
so what you're saying is that youtube is holding back organic views in favor of those will PAY to get views?
That's what I'm hearing. Pay to play.
That’s what the gentleman says
Out of all the languages that originated from the Tower of Babel, You chose facts 💯
Super useful insights. Thank you! It’s been a real struggle since I’ve started to posting videos in 2023. Some of my videos have thousands views but my subscribers just don’t grow. I love creating contents but I’m frustrated at the same time.
I'm the same. Some have thousands of views, yet my subs are small. I might stop altogether.
Every second month Ken Tamplin, the superstar miming meme of 2024, gains 10000 subscribers. Exactly 10000. Maybe paying for subscribers is super common to make your channel appear more popular than it is.
I thought it was against TH-cam rules?
This is a video every small/mid sized youtuber should see. Fantastic breakdown. I suppose this is why alot of larger youtubers advocate for building a community off youtube as quickly as possible.
People subscribe to lots of channels and they don't usually see the notifications.. It's better to have a community post
Yes true
Could this whole thing lead to the death of TH-cam? Is it just one more nail in TH-cam's coffin? If things get bad enough-- If the censoring gets bad enough, if life gets tough enough for the content creators, those creators will go elsewhere as will premium viewers like myself. (and of course when I refer to the content creators I'm talking about the organic creators like yourself not the mainstream media)!
Sounds pretty much like it to me. I'm spending a lot of time watching stuff on here meanwhile but the moment it starts to behave like Instagram and just push promoted content and advertorials into your face most of the time, I'll do the same thing and not spend much time on the platform anymore. Plus, you can make a good deal of money by selling slots on your show if you go on an OTT TV platform, at least if your audience is a bit older. It costs some money but probably not as much as you'll need to get decent views on TH-cam pretty soon and you own your stuff, aren't subjected to random penalties, algorithm changes etc. And then, there are free platforms like TT too if you can't invest at all and are okay with shorter formats. Don't think it's smart of TH-cam to go down this road in the long run but let's see.
@DrSusanneKurz what's TT
Everything is just so complicated now. We don't really know what to do to work hard and make money without all these complicated logistics 😮
@@DrSusanneKurz Yes, I think there will be more and more rewarding alternatives for TH-cam in the future of this crap keeps going. But it is too much kind of ironic if old-fashioned TV, once replaced by TH-cam, suddenly replaces TH-cam. 😂😂
But where? That's the problem. YT is, for all practical pouropses, a virtual monopoly in this space.
Why do you think they brought the criteria 1000 subs 4000 watch hours in in 2018? And why do you think that 36 million creators are trying to get monetized unsuccessful for years often? Because while you believe you are a pathetic content creator but maybe your next video is going to be the 'going viral' video and therefor do not give up, TH-cam takes 100% of the ad revenue of of all the ads they run on all the struggling channels. So TH-cam will keep its knee on our necks for as long as it can get away with it and that can be indefinitely as it is sitting in the driver seat.
Fancy seeing you here sonet! 😂 It would be good if these gigantic organisations were transparent so we knew what we were getting into rather than just living on hope.
@@SimoneWhippArtistthat is the whole idea Simone. TH-cam is creating the hope and keeping it alive with these random token complimentary blow up videos they afford small beginner channels, just to fall back on the exact low views your videos have received before the 'viral' video. But that is the hook. People are plundering forward in the hope that their next video is going to be the viral video. How many small beginner channel creators would have bowed out much sooner from this algorithm circus if it was not for this clever little tactic that TH-cam came up with, destroying thoudands of peoples' lives and mental health. They should actually be held accountable for it.
I'm annoyed to see ads playing on my small channel videos when I am not monetized & I'm not seen in search despite all efforts at fixing my hashtags & keywords.
Sounds like Payola like the early days of Rock n Roll
I actually thought about boosting a video by paying for it but yeah, if you’re not gonna be able to make any revenue from that once you’re monetized, that’s something you have to weigh out.
The last time TH-cam notified me of a video of yours is “My guitar journey Ep1” 3 months ago.
point noted.
I put out videos to educate, I don't make money doing this - don't care much if my videos don't get views but I will never pay for exposure.
I feel the same way, thank God I'm not desperate to be monetized but the views encourage the motivation to invest that much time and energy to Create content 😢
There are too many commercials now.
Most of them for obviously scammy products.
I don’t think this will be a serious detriment in the long run. What’s more detrimental is the loss of fair use in playing cover songs, the copyright strikes and the rising prevelence of Chinese companies stealing original music from TH-camrs and then putting a copyright strike on the original artist’s music.
I'm not surprised, as Google did the same thing with their search engine results.
Yep, I was involved in web dev when google got "serious" and demanded payment for organic listings. It all-but killed many small websites.
@@PeterReefman That sucks.
It's crazy how much time you have to put into creating weekly videos in order to get paid for your efforts.
At one level I get it. You have weed out the worst of the worst.
Still,it works out really good for YT.
Especially since 90% of the videos on YT didn't cost them anything.
Closer to 99.9 percent of videos.
Definitely TH-cam has been hostile to music channels for a while. I've noticed whatever gets places on YT recommendations is what performs, and thats completely luck of the draw, youll see it in the first hour or two, if your vid is featured on YT recommendations it will do well typically, but that's not based on viewer retention or anything, it's luck of the draw, I see it with my own videos. They also play favourites, I did several "firsts", other channel comes along, copies the same idea and gets expontentially more views.
Yeah. TH-camrs quitting YT. it matches what I see lately. And even big, over 1M channels.... Guess it was unavoidable. A flower cannot stay fresh forever.
Burn out is a real thing in the creative space.
Well I think it's natural, old channels die out and instead new channels replace them. Kind of like the cycle of life.
TH-cam is one of the last holdouts against enshittification and looks like they're in danger of going that route
maybe you need to widen your sample size.
😂😂
I think that shark got jumped a year or two ago, if not before.
I can only say to have a channel for your own enjoyment and a hobby because you're correct.
TH-cam will change notification setting, this explains a lot, can't watch video if notification is turn off.
What are the other platforms to try out? Rumble?
I'm very interested in knowing too
Good. Keep at it so Rumble becomes the new go-to.
I think the underlying reason is the same with politics; people are rapidly getting burned out with the whole thing. TH-cam itself is only about 20 years old, and the TH-camr podcast phenomenon at it's peak is less than ten years old. For me personally, I'm sick of it all because what people say doesn't matter much anymore to many. And also there's a lot of misinformation out there in order to get more views.
Yeah I agree. Hence my relationship with TH-cam is deliberately kept at arms length so I can see it for what it is (it has so far been a great tool to build an audience ) and not self identify with it
I had already wondered if this could happen. It certainly explains a lot. Finally someone tells it like it is. And it is just depressing. Guess I was just too late to the party. Sigh.
Many of us 😢. You are not alone. ❤
I struggle with this every day as I honestly didn't get into YT Content Creation to make money, it came with extra time from retirement. Then my subscribers started asking for memberships in the comments, BUT almost nobody subscribed and I didn't feel right even with my highest sub under $5 keeping someone from seeing something...
yea I know, I know, then it was well why not monetize at least I can buy a guitar book to show my subscribers...and on and on and on this has gone, and actually taken away from the enjoyment of being retired and just wanting to give back... I just quit worrying about i and stopped trying to CHURN out videos and do a once a week tip and and once a week talk.
I've had the channel about 8 months with over 1000+ subs and I've made a $153... SO "We're in the money". LOL!
You nailed it on what is going on, but I'll just keep trying to help as my way of giving back until my subs fall below 1K or this or that happens, but I can do that, UNLIKE the many really trying to make a living. Good realistic video as always.
Have to say, when life is busy and YT isn't your 'day job', publishing content to diminishing returns is very disheartening. I get it, quality and value have to be at a certain level for people to watch, and you have to work on improving your content, but if only professionally-made videos get pushed, then YT will just become another cable TV.
This is why we need decentralization now more than ever.
100%
Might be good to clean out some content producers to be honest. Too many people want only to make money from it which affects the quality of the video. I notice a lot of ai voice generated videos with a click bait title and a 20 minute read of wikipedia telling you nothing new. Getting harder to find good content, I sometimes question my premium subscription, except I find TH-cam Music handy.
Oh I'm sure they'll be cleaning out some good ones too in the process sigh*
If they can clear out those Ai robotic motivational quote videos and those Ai generated audio book videos that would be great 👍🏾
It encourages you to work harder...and have multiple streams of income...so this is still a positive thing.
No! It's not! Anytime you hear "WORK HARDER" it's complete BS! "Work harder" simply means drudgery/slavery. They get more work from you as you get less money from them. I'm disabled. I need an income. But working harder is not an option for me. I can't even handle 1 stream of income.
You can see where this going.
Makes perfect sense. My channel was doing good. I'm just getting to 6000 subs and was averaging 10k views a video then all of a sudden my channel crashed about a month ago. Can barely get a thousand views.
Wow. This has to backfire on them. People will go to other places. Do you know if any? I know Rumble out there.
@@FatBassterdsdoes rumble pay?
That's about when my views and new subs crashed.
@@FatBassterds Rumble is tiny and caters almost exclusively to a RW audience.
@LetsGoChaseThatTrain I have seen so so many channels and people in the comment sections say that.
A friend sent me this in a private group and you are spot on here. My channel is experiencing the same issues. It's good to see someone is honest here. Appreciate this. DiBrava
You spoke the truth, of late YT just prioritizes its own profits
The snakes head is eating it's tail.
that was a great game. good times.
TH-cam also made it harder to get monetized. My music channel needs like a half a million hours of watch time to get monetized, and we have 1-3 minute song videos. That means, yeah you guessed it: I would need to make over a million songs to get monetized, or my songs would have to get an organic 200,000,000 views per song.
Before I bought ads for the songs, we got maybe 5-50 views per video. Now I pay $20 on TH-cam for 'audience growth', and $20 in Google Ads for video views on all Google platforms to come to TH-cam and watch. I started this back in June and now we have 5k subs, up from 38 before the ads.
I can only pay $40/month for ads, one song a month, and that buys exactly 20,000 views. Imagine if I paid $1,000 per video, like Veritasium science channel does, with 2 mil views per video, which is absolutely fraudulent - not that many people are interested in science on the whole planet, yet there is his viewership per video.
Are you saying the threshold for your channel is 500,000 hours watchtime while for everyone else it is 4,000?
@@keithg460 Yes. Plus it's a music channel, but they don't give us the music note next to the name, or any music designation.
I thought if you pay watch time doesn't count. Only subs do.
I think the idea of seeing TH-cam as a career may not be a good idea. TH-cam is just a channel where you can get your message out and try something new. One can look at alternate channels too. In off line wolrd you dont have the platform or audience to try a hustle or share you ideas or provide service or value. Money making is not the only objective, one needs to build.a body or work and experi3nce to become a trusted personal brand which then translates in to a business, consulting, coaching, etc.
No idea why this came up on my feed. I’m an old broke down cowboy who makes dodgy vids with his horse. But found vid fascinating and insightful old mate. Cheers. As an aside, my wife and I have had many vacations in Singapore. Top holiday destination 👍🐴🐴🐴
They have updated their Algorithm drastically and it's not favouring Low creators at all
In short: TH-cam is killing TH-cam. Which is sad because it has become such a great place rich of valuable content from so many angles. But this sounds like we'll mainly see advertorial videos in the future - and, frankly, the number of ads has gone out of hand across the board during the past couple of years across the board anyway, not just on TH-cam. Or we'll have to scroll past all the promoted content IF they tell us it's promoted.
And anyone who can invest a little bit but not enough to satiate the growing hunger of the platform can go off to OTT TV platforms and make money off their shows pretty much from day 1 because they get a lot more views for their money right away. Plus, no issues with random penalties.
Yea man, noticed this as soon as they released the promote tab in YT Studio. They pay almost nothing in Ad revenue and now trying to capitalise off small channels who are trying to grow. GREED!
Indeed.
I had a growing organic views audience until YT tanked long format views when it came out with Shorts. That's when I started paying. It costs but it doesn't cost much. I've got a job and my expenses are very low. My poem videos were no candidate for monetization because of their niche and short duration but I support them the way another would support their children. I know they're good, and I know you'll know they're good. & they're just going to get better.
Hey Y'all from Nashville TN!! In the music industry, songwriters and singers all pay "pluggers" to promote their music.... As you can imagine, the rich kids get heavily promoted, such as Taylor Swift.... I am a small channel, but I switched to a less competitive niche, retirement planning, and focused on making something unique ( sexy videos on social security!!)....After, reading these comments, I will pay to promote, but within my budget..... As TH-camrs, we need to focus on other ways to make money, sponsorship, blogging, coaching, e-books, and e-courses. It is the "wild west" and so many ways to make money!! Weeding a bunch of channels, will only help the content creators that truly add value...
During the Gold Rush in America, the only people making money were the people selling shovels and the people selling sex!!
On a related topic, Ebay does the same thing they now force to buy ads to promote your product or they will not let you get any views and in this new system the views for top products that would get the maximum views if you listed it now just get a trickle down effect -small sellers will disappear because they won’t be able to afford to pay for these ads. For example I just sold a used pair of shoes for $79 and Ebay took over almost $30 out of that sale if you can imagine selling a used pair of shoes and then having to pay item and then pay almost half the profit to Ebay-Ebay has done things like this in the past and lost all their small sellers and then they had to entice them back in-it’s probably a shareholder profit thing just like what you’re talking about with TH-cam, but it’s killing the small creators and the small sellers that make TH-cam and eBay great-these companies get so big they implode on themselves and go under
9:04 golden words. TH-cam starting is very expensive. Good cameras. Good editors. Sets. Editing pc. Cinematographer and so on.
It's because guitar is a small niche in general. How many times can we all cover the same topics that everyone else has covered many times?
There's always new lessons and new gear and new songs ....
@@thomascoolberth2648 that is true but there is tons more repetition as well
This isn't just about guitar but a lot of different niches.
TH-cam wants to be a boring platform. TH-cam wants channels to do only one thing over and over and over again. TH-cam does not like variety channels. It confuses the all almighty algorithm.
Well noticed. Here are a few other observations:
1. You need to boost videos. It is expensive.
2. Boost doesn't equate to a good number of views
3. Even if you boost through YT, your views can eventually still drop
1. Oh yes, it is expensive.
2. It gives quite a lot of views BUT 99% the target audience are mostly the wrong audiences. Dont expect them to subscribe our channel, let alone coming back to any of our videos.
3. Never experience it, sorry for your loss.
Avoid using Boost from the channel's YT Studio. If we really want to spend the money, use Google Ads, set them all MANUALLY. YT Promotions doesn't know where and to who to "boost/promote" our video. Our cooking channels might ended up "promoted" to gaming channels audiences whom are never ever watch or care about cooking at all.
Great analysis ! Thank you so much for sharing !
Views to Subscriber ratios have dropped across the board considerably to about 5-10% views of your subs. Even larger channels have seen this dramatic drop in the last 12-18 months. In my space (history content), large channels like Mark Felton Productions are getting about 10% with occassionally breaking into 20-30%, and here's more stats:
The Armchair Historian channel would get close to 50% ratio a year ago. Now down to 10-15%.
Another channel called World War Two used to get 40-50% ratio a year ago... now about 4% to 10%.
Why is this happening? Those channel had organic growth and should still have similar viewership.
In the music space, I follow Rick Beato. His subs are well over 4.5 million, and he gets about 8% views to subs now. WHY? Arguably he had music strikes, etc. but wonder what caused the huge decline.
My only guess is that shorts have killed a lot of channels.
And... people are not watching as much due to annoying ads pop ups or having to pay a subscription. I also think the way YT would suggest videos has dramatically changed. I don't even get notifications anymore on new videos on channels I am subscribed.
Sounds like they prank us a lot. What can we do? Start an own platform and not leave it into the hands of greedy corporations?
Yup! TH-cam’s a scam. Great work 👍🏻!
100% agree with this. My friends video was boosted and there was lots of views, with Less likes. But the day Google Ads stopped views came down crashing to ZERO 😮💨😡
Sad
It's my opinion that we're seeing the results of major old school media outlets realizing their traditional methods are failing, realizing their streaming ventures are also failing, and now starting to open up to TH-cam as a viable alternative to Netflix. That's why if you have also noticed ALOT of the videos that have been promoted more and more are those made by major studios like Disney, NBC and the like instead of traditional channels, unless the channel pays for it that is.
If this is what is coming, then it paints a bleak future for small channels, and future youtube creators. This is not a good sign not one bit. It is becoming somewhat like an Orwellian nightmare.
I think with enough dedication and effort you can still build a large following completely organically. It just might take a little while but I see other TH-camrs all the time showing their results of when they finally started building a big channel and earning money from AdSense. Sure TH-cam will always prefer that you pay but if you're making entertaining content the views will come. It just takes time so no, I don't think it's as extreme as you're making it out to be. Paying for views is a waste of money anyways, having done that trying to grow a music channel that way. And what did it get me in return? Fucking NOTHING.
I've been noticing this for several years on TH-cam they change their algorithim to favour long form content. Many high quality small creators have been steadily declining.
You are right!.. i noticed that like 2-3 months ago.. it has really become a market place..so many new faces, everyone copying each other's title and description.. posting videos per hours.. it's no longer original and tangible
I’m on my 3rd week and got up to 41 subs but lost 3 over the last couple days … it’s ok tho I’m patient and still enjoying my channel and the people I’m meeting 😊
I’m glad to hear this. If you do it for fun , it’s actually quite a rewarding experience
@@ministryofguitar definitely sir
I just noticed that I was unsubscribed from your channel. I never unsubscribed myself
Oh, in my opinion, just as TH-cam unsubscribe people, it also give subscribers and I often wonder how many are human.
😬😬😬
I've noticed that it has unsubscribed me from several channels, including some that I watch frequently. I have to wonder if have been doing this to my channel, as well.
@LetsGoChaseThatTrain of course it does. I often gain 2 subscribers just to wake up the next morning to a loss of 3. Weird timing is it not? It always seems to coincide.
@@SonetLandman Yesss! I have noticed that ever since I started my channels. So it's not just my imagination.
I used to upload videos to Deinetube too! But why should I bother feeding the AI garbage for free? No, really, I don't do that anymore.
This is really interesting. I trying to run a kids channel,. There's no money in it anyway but I enjoy doing them. As a test I made 3 videos, more or less the same, I used different music, different animals that sort of thing. 1 video got 1.500 views, the 2nd 50, and the third 20. TH-cam simply isn't pushing them. The impressions on the 1st one were about 2000 but the other 2 were much lower. So not only can I monetize my channel, but kids are not getting to enjoy them.
To all small channels, we're going to make it. Don't give up.🙏💯🇵🇬
Very useful information.
You raise some interesting points in this episode that remind me of the problem with the Google search engine; they essentially killed the goose that laid the golden egg. In the beginning, a search returned a long list of results that began with the most likely ones and worked its way through to the more obscure. It was often the case that the obscure results were what I was looking for. Now it seems all I get from Google searches are page after page of the same results over and over again and the obscure results are not to be found. I assume this devolution is a result of over capitalizing the product. That is precisely why I rarely use the Google search engine anymore. In the case of TH-cam, when users no longer find the type and quality of the content they desire, then TH-cam will have killed their golden goose too. I will hunt for content using: + the search engine, + the list of "you may also like" videos that are pushed with each video, and + the channels that the content creators I follow list on their TH-cam channels until I find a channel that meets my personal subscription criteria. I typically only watch TH-cam content that I am subscribed to and only add a few new subscriptions a year while deleting about the same amount. I delete a subscription if the content creator stops putting up new content or the content no longer meets my personal criteria. I rarely watch anything being pushed into my face by TH-cam and can only assume I don't fit the profile of whom they are attempting to reach.
they basically want the money they are paying to every creator back with extra "taxes", whats next?, taxing independent sponsors?.
Thanks for sharing!
I thought it was just the summer slump... if you're right, then this is the new normal... bummer
I also thought similarly/ but tracking some channels and talking to multiple people in the space indicated otherwise. Of course there is no official communication on this. Why would there be
The idea has always been to drive people to your website, patreon etc
Over a 114m channels in only 100 niches. While 2.5 billion people are blocked from TH-cam by governments, leaving 5.5billion not to mention language
I pray for us the New TH-camrs to reach 1k subscribers soon 🙏📿
A good video … 👍☺️
Over my lifetime, all creators eventually...cease. For whatever reason, there is a peak creativity and factors internal and external reduce your activity over time. If you graphed it, for quantity/quality over time, it would be a perfect bell curve. For EVERYONE. Since the beginning of time.
I don't pay anything to promote my channel - no wonder I can't even get 500 subscribers in more than 2 years! I never get seen! I don't have funds to pay to be seen either. How sad that the world hasn't changed in that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. 😥
TH-cam is dieing, its changing. What works 5 years ago won't work today. Not just TH-cam, but every aocial media platform.
You are just refusing to understand that the competition has increased a lot. So what worked half a year ago will not work now because the audience's drop in attention span requires more quality to hold than before
Sobering, indeed. Guess I won’t start a channel after all.
Ha! I just started one (on a different account) a few weeks ago. Do it for fun with no expectations. Who knows - you may get lucky. I'm focusing on making better content and learning more about editing than the whole thumbnail/title piece. And - of course I'm getting only a handful of views.
I am certainly rethinking all my time wasted at this. We work for them for free. All the channels not yet monetized but they put ads on. That is an in credible incentive to keep 92% of channels from ever becoming monetized!!
You are exactly correct
Another guitar player who became a youtuber....like me!
This is definitely eye opening.....and it makes sense with what I've been observing.
apart from trends & advertising marketing, TH-cam may eventually reduce its content available based on this cost, and as a result will also see a subsequent drop in premium subscribers. Shareholding I understand, and YT is a best platform to promote products, but what do you do with the hobbyists sharing ideas, gamers same. It will ultimately strangle YT, and TikTok picking up the slack as they venture into areas where YT loses creators & custom. Being big doesn't guarantee security in a digital world where people want diversity, but not necessarily pay for it. YT are brilliant at what they deliver, but the algorithm is not the small channels friend.
for me yt is fun, making videos for friends and family.i dont need thousands of followers, its just a number, spam bots from Zimbabwe etc.
You are correct, I can get 50k views for any video that I pay for advertising. All of my other videos get 500 plays, then nothing. I have 4 videos with advertising money ... they get 10x the views of my other videos. So now I have to decide whether/how much to pay to have more views consistently. Apparently, if you want real exposure now, it will cost $$$.
everyone here is replaceable, and Google does not care.
It's since 2016 that this change have been noticeable, ever since they wanted a minimum amount of watch time before being monetized...
I have also noticed this. My views per video are down by more than half, consistently, since August.
Thank you for input ❤ best of luck ❤
A lot of guitar youtubers just do commercials for the product they are selling. I am all for making money but give us something to watch. Not a click bait video or a short just to say buy my what ever course. Dont give it all away for free but nothing for free isnt the way to go. Greed is killing youtubers that used to educate maybe they should treat youtube as a part time job and just get a real full time job at this point.
You are right about that. Right on point.
It was inevitable. My business sells a lot on eBay. Listings used to be ranked based on quality, reputation seller, sales history etc. now you have to pay to promote your listings against your competitors if you want to be seen.