A lot of Youtube channels are reporting declining viewership lately.
EX1: https://youtube.com/watch?v=cpVnx4_yqTo
EX2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF0tmhEtVJE
Fun times. Looks like a lot of channels are seeing a decline not just Linus. Hes just the latest to talk about it.
Then I saw this article as well and thought I would share.
Anyone here youtube creators? Are you seeing the same thing, a general downturn in viewership?
What would make me really happy is if viewership across YouTube entirely was down because people were getting fed up with YouTube and shifting to alternatives.
The problem is that there aren’t any really viable alternatives. YouTube has three major advantages and all three are necessary. First and most critically it has a viable business model (that is it has a way to earn money to pay creators). It’s a shitty business model, but it is viable which already puts it ahead of most services that are coasting on VC funds and hoping they’ll trip over a business model before they go bankrupt. Second it has the infrastructure and capital to actually serve content. Running a video streaming service is the single largest bandwidth consumer you could possibly come up with and that means considerable network infrastructure costs, to say nothing of the storage demands. Third it has network effect going for it. Nobody is going to watch videos on your platform if there’s only a couple dozen of them total. The sheer size and scope of YouTube means no matter what you’re looking for you can find something to watch. It’s a one stop shop for AV content.
Every single competitor to YouTube has failed on one of those points, usually the first one, rarely the second. The last service I saw come close to hitting all three was Vimeo, but it flamed out not even a decade after it launched. Twitch.tv is struggling to make their accounting work and isn’t even a direct competitor because they’re pushing hard for live streams as opposed to pre-recorded videos. Alternatives like PeerTube have no business model and will never attract creators or a mainstream audience. Paid hosting platforms like Floatplane are replacements for traditional video streaming services like Amazon Video or Netflix not really platforms where just anybody can set up a channel and start posting videos.
To paraphrase a famous saying, YouTube is the worst public video streaming service except for every other one. Until someone comes along and figures out how to make enough money to reliably pay creators and has enough capital to actually serve that content reliably and in high quality YouTube isn’t going anywhere.
I wanna like Peertube as an alternative, but I can’t find any content I like there. And the app is so awkward to use.
I use Odysee and Peertube where possible but yeah they’re somewhat awkward, and the biggest thing I typically miss is the comments. As awful as most Youtube comments are, the critical mass is there, if you’re looking for a quick link to something in the video, the summary that the author should’ve included but didn’t, the correction where the author was wrong, or something else of actual value, chances are whatever it is you’re trying to find somewhere on the top heap of Youtube comments. As with most social media, the value is not in the service itself, it’s in the community. Steering that community towards somewhere where it will actually be appreciated is a herculean task when someone has to be the pioneers and live in that desert and put in the work to prepare it for the ones who will come after them.
As much as I do complain about Peertube, I do like how it’s like the old personal blog days. Just kinda quietly do your own thing. I’m actually thinking of starting a channel to teach Japanese. I’ll probably have a few lines of my diary and break down the vocabulary and grammar in English and French. It’s like shit nobody would give a crap about, but it’ll get me to keep up with my diary and maybe someone will find the info useful, which I think the earlier days of personal websites and blogs were like.
I glanced at odysee and noped out the second the front page I was looking at was full of trump racist propaganda
Folks here are missing the point blaming LTT for the drop. This has been a sudden drop, too sudden to be fatigue or audience tastes changing.
Also I can see the same on my own channel. About 2 weeks ago views suddenly dropped to a third of the usual views. And even high performing videos have had trouble getting views since. Even videos with a high impression percentage are getting lower than average views.
The same wsd also reported by Second Wind (old Zero Punctuation) and their experience is the same: way too sudden drop to be anything else except YouTube adjusting their algorithm.
I used to watch LTT all the time. I stopped watching some years back after he installed a six figure Wi-Fi system on his “estate.” I had enjoyed watching a relatable everyman review computer hardware, and more often than not break things. I didn’t sign up to watch a millionaire dick around with exotic tech in his McMansion.
Doesn’t help he has actually gotten dumber over the years.
He very clearly has fallen out of touch and basically is just a personality at this point.
So your not even watching a tech enthusiast millionaire dick around with things.
Your just watching a rich white dude dick around with tech and his company.
I always hated his "oh no i hope i don’t drop this expensive thing that you peasants can hardly afford… Oh i dropped it’ schtick. People cheered him on like aome village idiot. At some point he said he feels like he’s pushing expensive unnecessary stuff to people who can hardly afford it and he wants to stop doing it. But he never did. He’s doing tech reviews and i assume a podcast, because everyone has a podcast, and his studio is ABSURD. I watched some other video where they needed something from the LTT studio and they even commented on how fucking big his operation is. He had rooms there he didn’t even know existed. I stick to the opinion that he’s just a slimy rick man, nothing else.
last i heard his company is worth 10+million, yea hes definitely just sitting back and not really advancing his channel/.
I think its because people don’t have money?
What does that have to do with being able to watch videos on a free ad supported platform?
Also this isn’t just something happening to LTT, this is happening across the board with many many channels speaking up about drop in views. YouTube did something and it’s hurting content creators both large and small
If someone can’t afford to be part of the hobby then they arnt goanna watch videos on that hobby
They’re going to move on. Find a new hobby that they can’t afford to participate in. Then find new creators that do content in that new hobby
Tech has priced out most of the lower and lower middle class. We can’t play anymore so we need to find something new to do
So people who couldn’t afford expensive cars didn’t watch Top Gear or Grand Tour?
There are people who do and people who watch. I think the people who do but can’t afford are the ones leaving. Now you’re left with people watching and the few that can afford to do.
Exactly!
