[LeifCarrotson]

That's splitting hairs, but in a way that's important to the conversation.

If YouTube served gigabytes of the video file for 40 munutes and human watched it for that time, but they didn't send a request to `youtube.com/api/stats/atr/` and periodically to `/stats/qoe?`, did the video actually get viewed?

I think a reasonable person would say that the person viewed that video. Only a programmer would suggest that wasn't a view because they didn't properly engage the statistics and tracking endpoints.

But so much of the industry is built on deeply invasive tracking and third-party ad networks that this is a normal thing.

[mrguyorama]

Youtube might not really care about accurate view counting in that way. In fact, Youtube likely does not care at all about traffic that won't view an ad, and they have demonstrably been hostile to that traffic for a while. Someday youtube hopes that nobody with an adblocker ever views any video, and has no intention to track their view attempts.

If that causes a problem with Youtubers making a paycheck from external sponsors, Youtube really really does not care, because sponsorships are money that youtube doesn't get!

Youtube is downright hostile to creators who don't make the "right" content, which means new videos at a perfect schedule that all have the exact same "taste" such that viewers can mindlessly consume them in between the actual ad breaks youtube cares about. The more and faster people accept this, the more likely we get improvements.

It took over a year for youtube to agree to let people swear in videos without punishment, including videos that are set as "These are not intended for children", after they unilaterally introduced this swear downranking several years ago.

Youtube cares about Mr Beast and that's about it. If you do not run your channel like Mr Beast, youtube hopes you die painfully and think about your mistake. Youtube actively drives creators making actual art, science, knowledge, and other types of videos to burnout, because Youtube considers creators to be a renewable resource worth exploiting, because there will always be 15 year olds who want to become influencers.

It is not "deeply invasive tracking" or "programmer thinking", it's entirely business. Google's business is ad views, not video views. They want to measure what they care about

[Gigachad]

I think most websites would break if a 3rd party script started blocking things. Theres also the fact that view tracking is fairly complex since they need to filter out bots / ad fraud.

And just the fact that if users have a privacy extension blocking the view tracker, is it not just respecting their wishes to not be tracked?

[arccy]

if a bot (or whatever latest of download tool) was served gigabytes of video, does that mean a human eventually viewed it? no.

[mlrtime]

So now we have to pass the touring test before the video is served? :)

[lsaferite]

It takes a long time to get there, but you'll eventually arrive.