[motrm]

Jeff Geerling has been sleuthing into this lately too - my biggest takeaway is that it's only viewer counts that are suffering, he's not seen revenue drop which is key. Viewer counts are vanity, revenue is sanity :)

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/digging-deeper-youtub...

[pilaf]

Many youtubers have sponsorships though, and their viewership stats come into play when negotiating with potential sponsors.

I guess if everyone was hit equally across the board then those sponsors will eventually adjust to the new metrics, but I assume some genres have more tech-savvy audiences which are more likely to use ad-blockers, so I'm not sure how evenly distributed this penalty falls.

[themafia]

It's wild to me that advertisers are willing to use first party metrics. In any other media business you'd have a certified third party ratings agency to give "audience size" metrics some legitimacy.

Youtube has no incentive to accurately report this data and no apparent accreditation in their methodology.

[kulahan]

Google in general have been resistant to letting anyone see how effective their ads truly are - and most studies that get close tend to show extremely questionable efficacy results.

If Google shows everyone how ineffective ads actually are, they’d crumble.

[jefftk]

This is very much not true: Google has a bunch of options for measuring ad effectiveness, and when I was there (until three years ago) it was very hard to get advertisers to use them.

The two main options advertisers have are:

* Brand Lift Studies: split audience into treatment and control, use surveys on a small fraction of participants to measure impact

* Conversion Lift: again split audience into treatment and control, compare downstream actions like purchases ("conversions")

These both work on YouTube IIRC.

[kulahan]

I am not surprised google has many tools to tell you how great google is doing at using google's data for you.

Anyways, I was mostly referring to sales at physical locations; I assume it's pretty viable to build a system to figure out if someone who previously bought a lot of shein is now buying a lot of temu.

[jefftk]

If Google didn't want people to see "ineffective ads actually are" why would they build and push Brand Lift Studies and Conversion Lift?

Offline purchases are harder, of course, but pretty sure you can still do this: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9994849

[lurk2]

> and most studies

Such as?

[girdi]

>It's wild to me that advertisers are willing to use first party metrics.

I agree, and find it even wilder that first party metrics from Meta and Google are trusted by most major advertisers (including ad agencies). I'm talking about six-seven figure budgets spent without any third party validation.

I've seen some studies on click fraud[0], but when advertisers are effectively choosing from a duopoly that has limited incentives not to lie in their metrics, I find it strange that there are no popular, widespread and accessible independent validation tools.

0 – https://www.mdpi.com/2073-431X/10/12/164

[Macha]

There's a whole industry of independent validation tools - DoubleVerify, IAS, Human, etc.

[kelnos]

I feel like it's more "second party" in this case. The first party is the creator, and the tracker/keeper of the view counts is Google. Google certainly isn't a disinterested, certified third party, but they're also not a creator who might make up inflated numbers to get a more lucrative sponsorship.

[rchaud]

Advertisers have 2 options for who to place ads with: Google and Facebook. When you have a monopoly, the customer has to take what it can get. Facebook has overstated its views and clicks for years to charge advertisers more, and faced no consequences for doing so.

[themafia]

This is largely true because this is where the largest volume of traffic comes from; however, it's not exclusive to these two by any means. There are some pretty big Supply Side Platforms and aggregators out there for advertisers to use. This comes into play a lot more often on podcasts and streaming audio, in particular, consider the fleet of Amazon Alexa devices out there.

Many of the advertisers that sell on these platforms are quite familiar with buying ads directly from "old school" media companies. So they have the competence and familiarity to be put off by the metrics but are apparently not in a position to force Google and Facebook to match standards used in other contexts.

[avbanks]

I've noticed this with TikTok and I'm almost certain YouTube 1P metrics are wildly inaccurate in particular views and non-bot comments.

[zahlman]

To me the wild thing is that this ad revenue model could ever have been profitable in the first place.

[roboror]

Click campaigns/conversions and user codes are more important than pure impressions.

[tehwebguy]

The automated “Skip Ahead” button (which I use daily) is already hostile to sponsorships. I would not be at all surprised to see them hitting sponsors on multiple fronts.

[nonameiguess]

Skipping sponsored segments is not necessarily a reflection of hostility. My wife has been subscribed to the Factor meal service for over three years, yet all of my favorite podcasts are constantly hawking it, and I don't particularly feel like sitting through 20 sales pitches a day for something I already purchased. There is unfortunately no way to communicate that information to either the channel owner or the sponsor.

[stevage]

I'm always just amazed how damn long they can be. On some channels I watch they are 2 to 3 minutes long every video. It would be madness to sit through that.

[a2tech]

Google is not getting a cut of that sponsorship money. They don't care if it wrecks your deal. They want your ONLY source of income to be Youtube. If you're fully beholden to Youtube, there will be no escape, no way for you to leave and take your viewership with you.

Remember how Youtube used to be a nice cage with lots of air holes and fun toys to occupy you? Light ad enforcement, tools to help you build your viewership etc? People are starting to feel the pinch of those being removed. That cool room is starting to look like what it really is--an industrial cage.

[Andrex]

I think it's less ominous than that.

Skip Ahead is only for Premium subscribers. The logic probably being native-ads/sponsorships are in fact ads, and Premium users are paying for an ad-free experience.

[PeterisP]

It's interesting that I just read an inteview with YouTube CEO (https://stratechery.com/2025/an-interview-with-youtube-ceo-n...) who mentioned that YouTube fully intends to start getting a cut out of that sponsorship money ("to align interests better").

[eastbound]

> They want your ONLY source of income to be Youtube.

I’m not sure. They want influencers to make profit using their platform, so they want to make them rich. On the viewcount, a skipped sponsor still looks like a view. No sponsor is going to look at the proportion of watching each part of the video, they just care about the view counter.

What Youtube may want, though, is for paying customers to be able to skip ads. “If you pay you should have no ads”.

[kelnos]

> What Youtube may want, though, is for paying customers to be able to skip ads. “If you pay you should have no ads”.

It feels rare that I agree with Google on anything these days, but if that is the case... sounds fair.

[Workaccount2]

YouTube doesn't have to defend itself. Read this thread and understand how shitty/entitled it's users are.

Then these adult children go an complain there are no competitors. No shit, you scoff at subscriptions and wear your ad-block like a badge of honor. Who the hell would invest in making a platform for non-paying users?

[godshatter]

Strangely enough, I do feel entitled to download data from YouTube using standard protocols on a standard port. It's not like I'm breaking in or anything.

[johanyc]

> The automated “Skip Ahead” button (which I use daily) is already hostile to sponsorships

Is it? If I proactively click skip, that means that sponsor is offering something of no use to me. As the sponsor, they successfully make an impression for a second or two anyway. And as a viewer that skip ahead button is much better than pressing right arrow button multiple times

[recursive]

There's a shift in tone of voice or ham-fisted segue that gives it away before they even name the sponsor. I can usually click the button before they even name the sponsor.

[k12sosse]

The best creators build these ad reads wearing different clothes.

[everforward]

The brand recognition is worth something. I haven't been in the market for new headphones in a long time, but I still know the name Raycon from the bajillion sponsorships they do.

Likewise with NordVPN and Raid: Shadowlegends. Never used any of them, don't really intend to, but I do know the name.

[nozzlegear]

Truly one of the best updates they've made to the YouTube app on Apple TV (and presumably other tv operating systems) of all time. Just one tap of the remote and we can skip all of the "sponsored by Made In" nonsense.

Edit: I guess this is a YouTube premium feature?

[downrightmike]

in video you can just hit a number to go to the next chunk 1,2,3,4,5 etc. just hit 8 or 9 if you want to see if there is anything of value in a 10 minute video that should have been 30 seconds, but youtube wants 10 minutes

[k12sosse]

It's actually [0-9] percentage of the video length times 9, more or less

[secondcoming]

Surely YT know if a video has sponsored content and so can refuse to play the video - or even not suggest it - if the user is using adblockers?

[SilverbeardUnix]

YT would start a revolt among Youtubers if they did this.

[Ajedi32]

I'm guessing the viewers who now suddenly aren't being counted were already not contributing to revenue because they block ads.

[themafia]

I pay for youtube. Payments from my views should come from my subscription payment. Ad blocking should be irrelevant in my case.

[hamdingers]

It's not in their interest to solve this problem. YouTube is more than happy to pretend you watched nothing and therefore disburse nothing.

To ensure my premium subscription dollars are making it to the creators I've now disabled uBO for the entire youtube domain.

[renewiltord]

Mate, you’ve taken the pains to configure your user agent to block tracking of views and then you’re complaining that views aren’t tracked. It’s got a nice well-defined API with a sane default and you’ve decided to override it with something else. That’s fine too, but now you’re complaining that you overrode it?

As the old joke goes:

“Doctor, it hurts when I do this”

“Then don’t do it”

[pharrington]

You know full well that almost nobody expects their adblocker to block an *invisible view count incrementer".

[renewiltord]

EasyList also blocks tracking. I agree that no one expects their ad blocker to block view counts. But EasyList is advertised as a tracking blocker as well. And true to form, they eventually merged a change to block more tracking. So this guy is upset that his tracking blocker blocked tracking and wants YouTube to find a way to circumvent the tracking blocker? The whole thing sounds bizarre.

[SchemaLoad]

How is it youtube's fault that you have an extension breaking the app without your knowledge? This is just more evidence to the case that extensions shouldn't be allowed to tamper with applications.

[Macha]

Why not? They block all the ad attribution companies that are doing this. Is it being first that makes the google one special? Or is youtube somehow more trustworthy than the rest of google?

[pharrington]

"Why not?" Because invisibly tallying a view count is completely different than displaying a visible advertisement.

[themafia]

To view the video I have to make an HTTP request for it. That request could easily contain my login name. The backend could be built to count views without a javascript callback running in my browser.

You're acting as if the way Google does it would be the _only_ way to do it. Obviously untrue.

[renewiltord]

The tracking blocker you have installed on your user agent actively attempts to block their view attribution and your solution is that you want them to bypass your tracking blocker's active and affirmative attempt to block their view attribution. You could just not actually block their view attribution if you want your views to be attributed.

I suppose Man was never meant to know Hacker News User's mind.

[jonny_eh]

As long as your ad blocker isn't blocking the metrics endpoint YouTube relies on to determine whether you're actually watching a video, the youtuber gets paid. In fact, Youtubers make more revenue from Premium views vs ad supported views.

[shadowgovt]

They impact individual channel revenue because so many channels have gone to sponsored ads, which automatic ad-blockers can't block (yet (1) ). The calibre of sponsor a channel can attract is impacted by the reported views from YouTube.

(1) Hey, imagine I had a plugin that monitored the behavior of several viewers of each video and could collate where most people skipped a big chunk of video, then, oh I don't know, offered a feature where if lots of people skip one chunk, it'll automatically skip it for you when you're playing the video....

[sebastiennight]

You're describing an existing plugin called SponsorBlock.

IIRC it even has lots of options such as enabling you to allow/disallow self-sponsor segments (the creator promoting their own product), "like and subscribe" calls to action, shock-and-awe intros, podcast recaps, and several other segment types.

[typpilol]

YouTube has it built in now. We just need auto skip to be built in now

[SchemaLoad]

Only for YT Premium users. But since premium views pay creators more it's less of an impact.

[fragmede]

If only there were some way that money in my pocket went to some of the people related to the things I like to watch. Some sort of premium service where YouTube could pay for a person to come to my house and collect money from me, and them give it to the people making videos, and then we won't have ads?

Nah, that'll never work.

[nemomarx]

do we know what happens if you run premium and an ad blocker together? I would hope they would still pay the creator for my views but I'm not sure now

[kelnos]

I expect my (Premium) views are no longer counted, because my ad blocker is blocking the API endpoint that counts my views.

The fact that I have Premium is irrelevant; if YouTube isn't getting the metrics that says I watched a video, then it won't be counted.

Certainly YouTube could change the method they use to count views so it would work in my case, but they probably don't have an incentive to do so.

[carlosjobim]

They pay creators more when a person with premium is watching their videos. Ad-blockers have no relevance in this case.

[machinate]

Apparently ad blockers can interfere with key view metrics.

Unclear what premium uses to disburse the 55% share that goes to creators; hopefully it's not those ones.

[WD-42]

I really wish there was a little micro-donation button, using something like the lightning network. I'd smash the crap out of that for good videos. But YouTube would never support it because they wouldn't be able to insert themselves between the creator and consumer.

[trenchpilgrim]

It already exists: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/10878910?hl=en

[WD-42]

Wow, so it does. I just checked. Most of my subscriptions apparently do not have it turned on. The one that I found that does have it turned on, it's hidden behind a hamburger menu that's located next to, you guessed it, an AI button. Nice to see Google prioritizing their crappy AI integration over their content creators getting paid.

[typpilol]

You can already "super thank" people in the comments

[WD-42]

I am being completely honest when I say I had no idea this even existed. As per my other comment, it’s very well hidden.

[sebastiennight]

So... BlockBuster video ?

[dogleash]

> Viewer counts are vanity, revenue is sanity :)

Except viewer counts are a factor for baked in ads. In this case, all the sleuthing and videos about the change are the probably the only thing that will alleviate/lessen the seemingly-worse ad rate negotiation position youtubers with less viewers suddenly find themselves in.

[bluGill]

Those buying baked in ads just need to find other ways to verify value. This is nothing new, no large company buys ads without checking how they really work (though many small companies would). There is someone who checks all those "how did you hear about us" responses asked at checkout - they want to know if the ad really provided value. Sure the TV stations tracked and reported ratings, but that is only one of the signs ad buyers look at, and it is one they only trust because they check and so would catch if it is manipulated.

The ad business is far older than the internet and there is a lot of old knowledge that apples directly to the internet. Those buying backed in ads should be aware of and tracking such efforts.

[typpilol]

A lot of sponsors have shyed away from YouTube because of the fake views and botting problem.

Some were paying big money to streamers with 20,000 live viewers. Even though 19000 of those were fake.

The sponsor then sees the ad and did terribly and doesn't sponsor anyone else in the future.

[bluGill]

That is why big companies calculate returns. That type of fraud predates the internet. you can be sure one of the first newspapers tried it.

[geerlingguy]

Two concerns I have in the long-term:

1. It seems views from Premium users who use adblock might also not get counted—and I'm not sure if the revenue from a Premium view in that circumstance would be counted or not (more research needed).

2. YouTube's recommendation engine weights views heavily in the system, which means channels with a more technical, traditional desktop viewing audience (probably a substantial portion of HN users) will be most impacted, and will not be able to grow an audience to help fund projects, yadda yadda.

YouTube creators with younger, mobile, less FOSS-y, and less tech-savvy audiences are therefore rewarded with more views/mindshare.

I know some here are like "go get a REAL job, influencers are scum", but I think that discounts the helpful work of many tech creators. Not only in direct contributions to open source projects, but also in being a voice to balance out the paid 'product showcase' style videos for many tech products that come to market.

In other words: if adblock users disincentivize creators like me from spending time and resources on YouTube, then video content will more quickly settle into the online magazine/news status quo, where 99% of the articles you read are just PR spin. Which you could argue would bring about YouTube's downfall earlier... or would lead us even more quickly to an Idiocracy-style society :D

I'm not saying adblock is bad or wrong or anything—I can't stand the YT ad spam, so I pay for Premium. To each their own. In any case, YouTube shoulders some of the burden, but will be the main entity to profit in any scenario.

[shagie]

Prior to getting Premium, YouTube was able to detect that I was watching a video (and nag me about premium as a way to get rid of ads). Since getting Premium, I haven't gotten the nag message.

I run AdGuard (on a Mac). It has a filter log feature.

Poking at the log while playing a video, I do see calls to ttps://{{clusterid?}}.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?expire=1758173247&...

However, this call is not being blocked.

I suspect that this is the "keep watching" feature that tracks where I am in various videos (switching from one logged in device to another keeps the same position). Watching the video all the way through, I don't see any requests relating to this getting blocked while on Premium. This feature is also likely more than sufficient data to attribute a view (and monetization of the view).

There was also a call to ttps://www.youtube.com/youtubei/v1/log_event?alt=json that was not blocked.

I do see some doubleclick.net links being blocked, thought that could be from any number of other pages I've got open.

Going to an incognito session and pulling up the same video (Once Around Trappist 1)...

There's now a call (that has gotten blocked) to ttps://www.youtube.com/api/stats/watchtime...

That call was not something that I saw when logged into premium. This rule is described as "@@||www.youtube.com^$generichide (AdGuard Base filter)"

[whatarethembits]

If this leads to lower quality videos, due to change in incentives, for certain segments, then I would consider it a WIN for users. For the portion of users for whom the lower quality is not palatable, they will get their time back to spend on other things in life.

This is all completely subjective of course.

[makeitdouble]

> I know some here are like "go get a REAL job, influencers are scum"

Signing up for the creator's patreon or buying merch is the more widely adopted reaction by the those actually enjoying the content.

[navigate8310]

Your presumptions are akin to gaslighting and YouTube has successfully pitted the viewers against creators this time. Ad blocking will never stop no matter what creators and monopolists have to say.

[geerlingguy]

I've never suggested people should stop using ad blockers. I use Pi Hole (and pay for Premium).

[naikrovek]

> Viewer counts are vanity, revenue is sanity :)

while true, choosing to base your income on the wellbeing of a company and its ad placement, no matter how well your video does or how good you are at producing videos is absolute insanity to me.

You become a slave to the latest monetization techniques and if you don't adopt them your revenue goes down, and your videos get put in front of fewer people, resulting in less income. This is bizarre to me, and definitely unwanted, because the things you need to do will never stop ramping up. A video used to do better because the thumbnail had a reaction face on it, now it's required just to keep your view count where it normally should be. People got used to that, and now ignore it. But it's still required if you want to get your video in front of people.

Now thumbnails must be rotated out frequently for the first few days of a video's life until the thumbnail which results in the most views is found. Soon people will become immune to this tactic just like they became immune to the reaction faces, and something new will come up to replace it. Except you don't stop with the reaction faces and the thumbnail rotation, you have to keep doing those.

Advertising requires this constant escalation to counter people's ever-increasing ability to ignore advertisements, and this will never stop so long as revenue determines how often a video is placed on the youtube.com homepage for a given viewer. it will never stop until advertisement is no longer a thing at all. a content creator must continually escalate what they are doing in order to stay right where they are in viewership, and even then they are subject to constant drops in revenue because of the whims of Google and advertising partners.

The whole thing is absolutely insane and I can't understand why someone would choose this to be their primary source of income. If people didn't choose to make youtube a career, there would be far fewer ads on youtube, because people would not be fighting so hard for views.

[drtgh]

Google's browser holds almost the entire market share, and it's a browser that shifted to Manifest V3 to prevent ad blockers from being installed (which now require special effort from users to install and keep it/them working). Do people really believe that the decrease in the number of visits is as significant as Google is trying to make YouTubers believe through their algorithm?

I don't know... To me, it just seems like a textbook move from a Corporate Abuse Playbook. I bet someone at Google is laughing about it right now.

[happytoexplain]

You're saying that YouTube implemented a change that significantly reduces creators' viewer counts but won't affect their revenue, and they haven't told creators? "Here, have a heart attack"?

[kllrnohj]

YouTube didn't change anything. The ad blockers recently started blocking the metric call for whatever reason.

[a_shovel]

nobody's ever accused youtube of being too transparent with creators