- Don't we all love getting new
subscribers on YouTube.
I've got to be honest I get a pinch
of excitement when I see my sub counter tick up one,
Which I'm about to see right now.
Why is it not doing anything?
Is this thing on.
(mood music)
Abbreviated public subscriber counts is what
YouTube are calling this their support page,
which I will leave a link to
in the video description.
Let me stress, before we delve into this topic.
This is nothing new, YouTube already have these
dotted around there pages.
For example, go to any YouTube channel page, your
not subscribed to on a computer, and you
will find both an exact number of subscribers
for a channel as well as the abbreviated one.
The very simple question that I can put to you.
Which you can answer in the voting card, up here.
Is which do you prefer?
Abbreviated, no that's the wrong one.
(Beep)
Abbreviated sub count or accurate sub count
to the last digit.
Since everyone always asks about this whenever
it features on one of our videos, go to
Amazon search for La metric time, this is
how much one of them cost, hashtag not sponsored.
What you may have also noticed is that in the
land of abbreviated sub counts YouTube always
rounds down, so until vidIq hits 346,000 actual
subscribers, the count will remain at 345,000 subscribers.
(bell ringing)
This rounding down, can be in the 100's, 1000's,
even millions where by a channel can have
986 thousand subscribers wiped off there
abbreviated count.
Alright, alright.
I know what you're all saying at this point
Rob this is very fascinating but why should I care.
(clap)
Pay attention folks because now your about to
get a dose of from August YouTube is adopting
abbreviated sub counts across all its pages.
So whether you're on a channel page, a watch page, you will
see see the abbreviated sub counts for a YouTube channel.
Now there are a couple things to add the full subscriber
count to you the video creator through desktop and mobile
YouTube analytics however have you noticed a
discrepancy here? at the top of the screen is one of our
favorite Vid IQ tools, a real time stats bar which shows a
different sub count. Now this figure does come from YouTube
via their API service and this allows many third party
vendors such as Vid IQ to grab YouTube data like subscriber
count but as YouTube states third party that use
youtube's API services will also access the same public
facing counts you see on YouTube. Creators will still be
able to see their exact numbers as we've already said
in the YouTube studio. As a result that may mean the stat
goes from looking like this to looking like this but
more on that later. So this is everything you need to know
about what's happening to subscriber counts on YouTube
sometime in the next three months but you as video
creators have the right to ask why? As usual YouTube don't
offer much of an answer but they do say that this move is
designed to create more consistency where public subscriber
counts are displayed and I can kind of see their point in
this regard it feels like this figure has become more
and more of a headache for YouTube as creators and users
of the platform take as gospel. But subscriber counts in
the YouTube studio is always behind likely because it's
delayed fully verified data and such numbers lead to
confusing questions from users, why does this page say I
this many subscribers while this one says I have
this many subscribers? If YouTube takes away exact numbers
that solves the problem but it doesn't really satisfy
anyone. Another well reasoned argument as to why YouTube
might be doing this is to protect the mental well being
of the video creators on the platform. Views, likes, shares,
subscribers. The gamification of social media platforms
has got us all addicted to wanting more, more more more.
Instagram made a very bold statement last month when
they announced testing post devoid of likes. Perhaps YouTube
wants to test this out too with their platform. Or is it all
simply down to this. Now I promise you this is not just
another excuse to crowbar the PEWDIEPIE VS T SERIES
Subscriber race into a video. This in fact might be the very
reason YouTube are changing their publicly displayed
subscriber counts. In the last six months a cottage industry
built upon subscriber count live streams using exactly the
data we're talking about has sprung into life on YouTube.
These live stream's are very easy to set up and provide 24/7
content for the said channel we ourselves have tested this
format and if you're one of the first to get one running for
a subscriber race of interest it is a very easy and quick
way to earn views and subscribers and all of them want
to emulate Flare TV the channel that started this craze last
year earning themselves millions of subscribers and hundreds
of millions of views. However without those super specific
subscriber counts that update every second you change such a
live stream from looking like this to something even more
pedestrian. And to date all of these live subscriber races
have been born out of either conflict controversy or
drama and put simply I don't think YouTube wants that on
their platform now of course this all just hearsay and my
thoughts in a vacuum of no information from YouTube we'll
have to come up with some conspiracy theories. Now then what
do you think? As well as the voting poll in this video
I asked our audience over the YouTube community tab
and the answer is pretty unanimous you think it's a bad
idea and as always you had more to say on the topic.
CZsWorld says that this subtracts from the experience and
adds nothing. Spyro hawk gaming thinks it's ridiculous
because every subscriber counts, they are humans well that's
probably not strictly true, sub bots! Joseph Simard simply
thinks that YouTube should just give us the option to
turn this on or off while Octorious says that knowing exact
subscriber counts allows the creator to build up
anticipation for new milestones such as the two thousand
subscribers he recently hit. Shane Coyle would like to
continue to see the growth for smaller channels, ah
quick thing we need to add here and it's good news for
Shane because for channels of under one thousand subscribers
you'll still see the exact numbers, why?
Several of you talked about how this would affect subscriber
battles both for and against the existence of them but
beyond these comments it was very hard to find anything
positive being said about this YouTube change. Say for
Hayze Houze who told us he's looking forward to the change
as it will help him focus on growing a wider audience more
than worrying about single subscribers. HillBird votes that
youtube's occupation in life was to fix something that isn't
broken and then Thanos chimed in threatening to snap YouTube
out of existence. Why do these things from the movies
never work? So credit to YouTube on this one their
communication is good they've told what's going to happen
and when it's going to happen, we've got plenty of time to
prepare. The problem is almost everybody in the YouTube
community doesn't want to prepare for this, they do not
want this change so does that mean YouTube may reverse a
change on this probably not but we'll wait and see.
And of course the final thought which is the title of this
video does this mark the beginning of the end subscriber
counts completely on YouTube? I'm going to say no at this
point but there is a recognition from many social media
platforms that the numbers perhaps mean to much to the
people who use the services. YouTube are always telling us
that the content should serve the audience and not an
algorithm so if you strip away the evidence of that
algorithm on the surface such as subscribers then the
creators will concentrate more on the content itself
that's my final thoughts on the topic for now but as
always I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments
below and enjoy the rest of your video making day I
think I'm gunna have to buy a new one of those aren't I?