Variety - Why YouTube Is Changing the Way it Reports Subscriber Counts (Starting August)

[TheAbsolution]

Here's their official reasoning.


Here's what Variety suggests is the real reason behind it.

Within the next three months, YouTube will change the way it publicly displays channel subscriber counts: It will provide only rounded figures instead of actual follower numbers.

For example, under the change, T-Series — the Indian music-video channel that recently surpassed PewDiePie to become the most-subscribed channel on the platform — would be listed in all public counts as having "99M" subscribers. In some places, YouTube reports the exact count: 99,240,165, as of noon ET Wednesday.

The question is: Why is YouTube doing this?

YouTube's official explanation is that it wants to "create more consistency everywhere that we publicly display subscriber counts," according to a blog post Tuesday announcing the change. Currently, all channels with more than 1,000 subscribers have their subscriber counts displayed differently in different places across YouTube desktop and mobile apps.

But YouTube likely has another motive: to discourage obsessive comparisons of certain creators' subscriber counts — something that has become a spectator sport of late in the YouTube world.

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Broadly speaking, YouTube wants the narrative to be about how it's a great place for creators to distribute content and reach fans — not about the hour-to-hour fluctuations in subscriber numbers.

And for YouTube, the focus on sub counts — as a proxy for approval or disapproval of a YouTuber — distorts real user interest and engagement. By rounding off the reported subscriber numbers, it hopes to minimize unintended consequences of providing real-time running tallies. In a horrific example of this, the perpetrator of the New Zealand terrorist attacks reportedly urged people to "subscribe to PewDiePie" in a Facebook live-stream of the massacre; PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg, responded, "I feel absolutely sickened having my name uttered by this person."

YouTube said it will begin displaying the rounded subscriber counts beginning in August 2019 across all device platforms. It noted that creators will still be able to see their exact number of subscribers in YouTube Studio.

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More at the article.
https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/youtube-change-subscriber-counts-rounding-1203223404/

 

[Loxley]

Good. Though I wish they'd go all the way and just hide sub numbers from public view period so that only the account holders themselves can see their own subscriber count. It's been used as a completely bullshit, arbitrary measurement of "success" for years now.

 

[amnesties]

nothing weirder than nerds who sit around watching subscriber counts go up and down all day. really really weird

 

[TarpitCarnivore]

Good. Though I wish they'd go all the way and just hide sub numbers from public view period so that only the account holders themselves can see their own subscriber count. It's been used as a completely bullshit, arbitrary measurement of "success" for years now.

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Or make it more intelligent by accounting if someone is subscribed, clicking the video and watching X amount of content.

 

[PeakPointMatrix]

Aw that's nice, all it took was a massacre where the terrorist referenced subscribing for them to make a change.

Wonder if it will take the same for them to address the racist, conspiracy, nazi trash on the platform too.