"Very dramatic shift" - Linus Tech Tips opens up about the channel's declining viewership

Comments

• JackbyDev@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  LTT had multiple pretty bad scandals, didn’t they? I recently needed to find some technical information and other places had better information. LTT seems to be more of a pop culture tech channel? I don’t even really know how to describe what I mean. It’s like the reviews are more like fluff pieces I guess? They aren’t super duper technical. But I also don’t watch them much so maybe I missed something.

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  • dev_null@lemmy.ml ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yeah, the videos are entertainment. When looking for actual technical information, they release it in text form: www.lttlabs.com

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  • CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    They’re tech entertainers, and Linus is the clown jester.

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  • AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yes, it’s definitely a more mainstream entertainment channel than pure info

    aimed more at gamers than tech people I think

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  • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Top Gear

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• PangurBan@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Yeah, because Linus is kinda shit more and more. Hes wholly turned me off from his content over the years because of how he acts, what he says, etc. And you can ‘trust me bro’ on that.

  I really like and appreciate people like Steve. I like what he’s doing and how he’s doing things. He hasn’t become a greedy corpo and hes just a very intelligent and caring person who believes in standing up for what’s right; Even if that means calling out a friend in the industry.

  I feel like Linus is out of touch with reality. He’s not at all down to earth anymore.

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  • towerful@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Steve and GamersNexus is a gem.
    They’ve figured out what viewers want: honesty and transparency.

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• flop_leash_973@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Broadly maybe the viewers are just getting sick of all of the shilling for cheap shit that goes on with the ever increasing sponsor segments so many channels have these days. Arguments will be had about just how needed all of those marketing dollars are for the creator to keep doing their thing vs them getting used to a lot of money and wanting even more of it. But the end result is a worse viewing experience for the consumer. I know there are a lot of channels that make good content that I’ve stopped watching because they spend a quarter of the video shilling junk. Sure sponserblock would get rid of those sections, but it won’t send a message like unsubscribing and stopping watching them completely will.

  Also maybe this is a larger Youtube usage hit due to their aggressive anti-adblock nonsense and uptick in ads and shitty UI design.

  For Linus specifically, he has the above issues as well as having been very publicly outed as a slimy deuce. What his channels put out is not unique enough these days to justify dealing with the shilling and his companies bad behavior.

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  • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    though i get the other things you mean, LTT's sponsor sections have roughly stayed the same length over the years

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• Randomgal@lemmy.ca ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I can’t talk about the others but LTT went form a tech channel to a luxury products channel. I’d blame some of their loss on that and the controversies.

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  • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    that's not my impression. they definitely don't really get technical beyond the pop culture depth, but just last week they reviewed budget chromebook options and finished a switch-to-iphone challenge

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• Horsey@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I completely stopped watching him after the GPU fiasco. I always thought he might be super slimy, but I think I can reasonably say that he is.

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  • dev_null@lemmy.ml ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    So did I, until it turned out the Gamers Nexus video was an unsubstantiated hit piece. For example it came out that the Billet Lab GPU cooler that they supposedly stole instead of turning back, was never supposed to be returned and Billet Labs confirmed the agreement was that it would not be returned.

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    • Horsey@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      JFC the lore goes too deep

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  • mr_pip@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    what gpu fiasco are you referring to?

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    • Horsey@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      m.youtube.com/watch?v=FGW3TPytTjc&source_ve_path=…

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• Fedditor385@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Reasons I see:

  a) the generation that grew up watching LTT is now at age where they don’t watch as much YT as they did before b) increasing amount of things happen which put viewers off c) consumer technology peaked and is now “boring” d) new generations don’t have as much interest in technology altogether

  Let’s explain:

  a + c) people watching LTT years ago were living in an exiting tech era where it boomed and you had mayor leaps in tech basically on a yearly basis. Moving from floppy disks to CD’s to USB sticks. CRT to LCD displays. 16-bit to 32-bit color. Solitare and Minesweeper to Call of Duty 4 and Need for Speed. Symbian and Blackberry to Android and iOS. Tons of manufacturers, tons of competition, tons of new and exctiting stuff.

  Let’s observe the state today: iPhone looks the same for the past half decade. Android is basically just Google and Samsung. Storage is now all in cloud. New games are recycled and upscaled old games. Every new generation of hardware is same thing just 10% better/faster. New OS releases are just refinements without new features. Most changes are done just for the sake of change. Existing hardware can basically be enough for 5+ years. What is LTT realistically supposed to talk about that is interesting? There is simply no more interesting tech.

  This ties in into d) - tech peaked, new generations “just use it as it is”, there is no need to tinker with it, prebuilt PC’s are more than fine for years to come. Since AI the IT job landscape seems to be in decline, both in demand and in pay. People do other stuff now that is more lucrative.

  LTT is dependent on stuff happening so that they can make videos about it. But, stuff kinda just isn’t happening. Or the stuff that happens is just not noteworthy news anymore.

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  • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It’s not just ltt. Pretty much everyone I watch that talks about their metrics is complaining about the drop in views. Some also a loss in income.

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  • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Or google just twiddle our knobs and youtube is not a meritocracy ?
    I mean, we don’t need to post hoc ergo propter hoc on occam’s razor here, we know google, we have their game plan.

    This is a powerplay, youtube reigning in the talent and intervening in the algorithm, its “meritocratic puppetry”.
    NO DOUBT, they are NOT shutting them down, but they have REMOVED a previously existing “unfair boost”.

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• rafoix@lemmy.zip ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  So many possible reason.

  Linus has a history of scummy behavior which turns people off.

  Everything gets boring eventually. Especially things that are supposed to be funny.

  Nothing lasts forever.

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  • kieron115@startrek.website ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    He’s also put a lot of work into creating a team of hosts that are genuinely wonderful to watch. Riley, Jake, Sarah, James, and Elijah to name a few. Best thing he could do for his brand is step out of the limelight, focus on being “chief vision officer” and let his wonderful talent fully take over hosting.

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    • Retro_unlimited@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That’s what bugs me the most, it used to be everyone making awesome fun videos, but then Linus is now the host of EVERY video. It’s just not the same

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• felipesoc@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I’ve noticed this in many of the channels I subscribe to, 5 years ago they had something like 1m views on some videos regularly and now only 300k (or similar decline), all of them. Some of them even made videos about it. My guess, and theirs, is YouTube changed the algorithm and also the introduction of shorts.

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  • smayonak@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    LLMs are doing things like summarizing videos and then using the summaries to answer queries that before would have been a search result with monetization.

    Google’s executives are unconcerned about the declinibg incentives to create YouTube videos having been sold on the lie that the future of the internet lies in Ai generated content. In other words robots will make the internet.

    Robots who hallucinate constantly.

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    • lorty@lemmy.ml ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      This hurts review channels and similar but it wouldn’t hurt other kinds of video (unless people want summaries of fun videos?)

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    • kieron115@startrek.website ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Remember when search summaries were just extracts from the top result instead of LLM hallucinations? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

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• Eddbopkins@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Viewer bot farms is a thing. Is that a declining business now? And the results starting to show now?

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  • mesamunefire@piefed.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Maybe they pivoted to ai farming? Dunno.

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• FarraigePlaisteach@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Some pretty serious things going on in the world today that need our support and therefore attention. I consume less entertainment as a byproduct.

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• chilicheeselies@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  My theory is that we have a limited number of hours a day to view content. We also have a growing number of channels and content in general. Algorithms include new content we kight enjoy, and for every new channel we get hooked on, one of the older ones drops off.

  Tv shows rarely (ever?) Last forever. Why should channels?

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  • OctopusNemeses@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Wiith how often either someone I know or some random user is like, here watch this. And it’s anywhere from 15-60 minute video. How many hours day do you think I have. Just sum up what you’re trying to show me in a few sentences.

    It’s like the 21st century version of useless work meetings.

    This didn’t need to be a meeting.
    This didn’t need to be a Youtube video.
    This didn’t need to be a podcast.
    It’s oversaturation.

    Same goes with podcasts. I’m sure we’re past peak podcasting too. Everyone and their dog has a podcast. 99% of them are private conversations that have no reason for existing as podcasts. People are recording a random conversation about nothing and calling it a podcast episode. Just stop.

    I don’t even watch so many hours of TV shows. I have maybe two or three shows I’ll be watching at any given time. That’s like a few hours a week. The algorithmic content pushing has lost the plot. They expect us to be robotic content consuming machines 24 hours a day, seven days week. I have to eat and shit and earn a living so I can continue to sustain my physical existence so I can consume content. I suppose this is the natural end goal of adtech companies like Google. A tireless soulless machine that devours humanity.

    Much of the content has become useless fluff. A good chunk of Youtube videos and podcasts are just friends bantering or cackling over inside jokes. Like why am I listening to this noise being blasted from my headphone to my ears. I’m over it.

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  • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    No this is a contraction of the commons

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  • JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    We do, but in the last decade youtube has doubled its active user count to something like 2.5 billion. That’s a lot of more people-hours to spend as well.

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• orenj@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I’m watching less 'tube in general because youtube is obnoxious as fuck. They devote so many resources to getting you to watch ads, it actually causes the whole experience to suffer even with an adblock.

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  • b34k@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I dunno I’ve still yet to see ads. Between Smart Tube Next on my TV, Firefox with uBlock origin on my computer, and AdGuard + Vinegar on my phone, nothing gets through, even with their latest efforts.

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    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Okay, but what are you still even watching on YT? The only media I even occasionally consume is Well There’s Your Problem, the occasional FoundryVTT HowTo, and the odd clip I get sent from friends.

      Yeah, NewPiped screens out all the shitty ads. But so much of the core content is some Mr Beast style slop, I’ve got little reason to look at my front page.

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    • patrick@lemmy.bestiver.se ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      So you’re also contributing to the declining viewership that these channels are complaining about. They make no money off of your watch time so to them it is the same as no view at all.

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    • thax@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Heh, praise uBlock. If it didn’t work as well as it did, I’d drop youtube in an instant. Invidious used to be awesome, but it’s so hit-or-miss now that I seldom try it. Youtube isn’t bad without ads, but ads + wading through clickbait bullshit just isn’t worth it.

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• r0ertel@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I came here to see if it was the early signs of the demise of YouTube. I secretly want all these content producers to move to a privacy-respecting platform, especially those who produce tech or privacy related content.

  Now, for why I don’t watch videos anymore, the medium isn’t as easily consumed by me. I prefer text. At home, it’s noisy and I get interrupted every 90 seconds. I lose interest quickly and fast forwarding isn’t as easy as scanning text for a topic shift. My mind wanders on some topics, internally exploring that topic deeper. With text, i can just stop reading. With video, i need to realize that I’m processing a thought and hit pause, then rewind a bit. I get interrupted a lot. On the bus, I need to remember headphones and I hate when people shoulder surf. That’s harder to do with text. Give me a plain text RSS feed that I can read anytime.

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  • sibachian@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    i mean; this has always been my take but people don’t understand that we’re all different and insist video medium is best medium.

    and now blogs are dying because of ai.

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• Jollyllama@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Lol 90% of comments taking the opportunity to hate on LTT and missing the point of the post. Views are dropping for multiple channels.

  Also the LTT hate is mostly “He’s so rich and out of touch”. LTT is the mass produced TV show for tech YouTube. It’s meant to be entertaining and easy to watch for the masses. I like watching most of their videos. Gamers Nexus has its place too but it’s a different kind of nerd whose a lil more cynical and obsessed with specs, a lot more niche and it shows in the views.

  To each their own.

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  • NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Most of the hate should be that he really doesn’t know what he is doing and should have a disclaimer as such.

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    • Jollyllama@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That’s what the writers are for. It’s a produced show with a personality reading a teleprompter.

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• kepix@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  the channel has lost its charm. its just puking out videos, but there is no content. no real hardware tests. only drama and clickbait crap. he has lost the techsavvy part of the viewers on his tech channel with pushing garbage into everyones face.

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• wabafee@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  My guess they started accounting for bot visits. Since AI now is a thing. Perhaps a lot of videos before were web visited by bot.

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  • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I agree, people forget how fake the internet is.

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  • 123@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Or they could be subtracting viewers with ad blockers? It would make sense that more techie channels would be hit the hardest.

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    • CosmoNova@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The overwhelming majority of Youtuber visitors use the official app and even those who use a browser don’t have an adblock 88% of the time if my memory serves me right. So no, it’s not adblock.

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    • buddascrayon@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I think you’ve hit it on the nose right here. Especially since this declining viewership problem has been hitting channels across all of YouTube and it has only been since they started their crusade against ad blockers.

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• Redex68@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  The more interesting part for me, that they mentioned on the WAN show, is that while viewers dropped significantly, the revenue basically hasn’t changed. They’re more or less making the same amount of money from half the amount of reported viewers.

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  • leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    They’re more or less making the same amount of money from half the amount of reported viewers.

    This would pretty much confirm that they’ve stopped counting viewers who use adblockers.

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  • GamingChairModel@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Isn’t that the formula? They take all of the revenue, set aside the percentage they’ve set for revenue share, and then divide that among all channels based on viewer counts. Dropping viewership for all channels proportionally means that the same amount of revenue will still be distributed to the channels in the previous ratios.

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    • Redex68@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I’m not quite sure I understood what you were talking about, but they specifically showed their revenues from YouTube AdSense for the past year or so, and they showed exactly how much they gained from each video, and it shows basically a straight line, whilst the same graph for viewers shows a substantial decrease. I’m not sure if that was specifically for LTT or for all of their channels, but I’m assuming it was just for LTT. That has no relation to them then splitting their revenues to their different channels.

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    • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The same proportion will be given but the total revenue overall should shrink with less viewers, so less for each creator.

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• ProgrammingSocks@pawb.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Eh. I lost any interest I had with Linus after the whole Gamers’ Nexus thing, and I’m definitely staying away after hearing what Louis Rossman had to say about the guy.

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  • dev_null@lemmy.ml ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I did too, until many of the accusations, like the Billet Labs thing, turned out to be false later.

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    • ProgrammingSocks@pawb.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That’s unfortunate (for Linus), but Louis Rossman’s stories about dealing with Linus directly pretty clearly shows him to be an unpleasant person that thinks of relationships as transactional

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  • Mwa@thelemmy.club ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    i wonder whats his problem

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• x_pikl_x@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Stopped watching this douche nozzle when they were having a big meet and greet to celebrate their new studio. And he looks at the camera guy and tells them inf front of all the fans they’re having a good time with… Overtime tonight guys, we gotta edit this footage and have it online today. Would have quit my job on the spot and as a viewer I quit my part in the bullshit right then and there.

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  • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    May care to link to what you mean?
    Can’t remember what you are talking about.

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  • humanoidchaos@lemmy.cif.su ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I dunno, I realized a long time ago this is just a business for the people engaging in it.

    Of course they’re making more money than they need and are partying as much as possible with it.

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• 3dcadmin@lemmy.relayeasy.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Oh and as if by magic, after I said something I received an email from a client bemoaning about the drop in youtube viewers. She reckons it is not only a drop in viewers but in viewing time as well. Mentioned bloody AI as well just because everybody is

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• lone_faerie@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Maybe try not threatening to sue former employees when they come forward about sexual harassment

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• 3dcadmin@lemmy.relayeasy.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Youtube has seen exactly the same slowdown as everything on the internet. Plenty of people have less time to spend watching videos and being more worried about money (lack of it) whilst also spending more time on other things.i cannot blame one single thing but I have noticed that the complaints about AI being literally everywhere are at the foreground when people moan to me!

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• fox2263@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  YouTube is hostile to viewers unless you pay them £20 a month.

  It’s like 15 ads per 2 mins screen time with 2 being unstoppable and 1 being 3 minutes long. Slightly exaggerated but not far from the truth. It’s horrible. And they slow everything down too, the main video fake buffers whereas when you’re in premium it doesn’t.

  I didn’t mind paying a fiver but had to do it via the moon to get it cheap but now they have stopped that.

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  • RisingSwell@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I only pay them because I watch a stupid amount of YouTube. Hours a day, many more hours when not working.

    If those ads come back while I’m paying though, the flag flies.

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  • kalleboo@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    On broadcast TV, a 30 minute timeslot had only 23 minutes of actual content and 7 minutes of ads.

    That’s what we’re heading back to.

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  • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yep agreed.
    It’s downright disgusting to browse youtube without premium or an adblocker.

    Sadly I need premium simply because I am watching on an Android TV and I am not trusting third party clients with my google account.
    Too much stuff is associated with it (monetary)

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• Engywuck@lemmy.zip ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I literally i watch a YouTube videos, as they are just a waste of time. For a given video on a given topic, the same amount of information can be obtained by a decently written blog or article that can be read in a 1/10 of the time it takes to watch q video filled by nonsense blabbering and sponsored segments for revenues. In some extreme cases, if the topic seems really, really , REALLay interesting, I may ask an LLM to summarize the video for me. People should stop linking YouTube videos altogether.

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• goatinspace@feddit.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Try peertube?

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• floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  They’ve spent the last several years playing into “The Algorithm”, to the point where most videos felt unnatural. Tight posting schedules, topic choices, sudden endings, etc.

  Not that I care, but I’m curious to see if they will switch to making content they actually care about, or double down and start doing proper brainrot.

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• interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Are people pretending that Youtube doesn’t tweedle the knobs and intervenes massively in the al mighty algorithm like it’s not just a audience mind puppet but some kind of transcendental meritocracy ?

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• hornedfiend@sopuli.xyz ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I was never a fan of LTT, or his videos, but I did watch one video, his Pop os one and that immediately confirmed why.

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• REDACTED@infosec.pub ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  It’s interesting that no one seems to be mentioning the fact that new generation is using TikTok and older generation is watching media less and less. To me it looks like YouTube itself is cooked in the long term, and they brought it upon themselves. Restore the gotdamn dislikes so I can at least navigate the damn platform.

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• TooManyGames@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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.

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