What's up with LTT views?

[lukestechtips]

I've noticed that LinusTechTips videos don't get as many views. I found this quite unusual because LTT's subscriber count is fairly large. Most videos that aren't build guides or unique videos (like the deadmau5 house tour) get only about 500,000 views in the first day but the view counts start to slow down.

LTT's most popular videos have lots of views, but they're years old, and the view count quickly goes down.

 

What are your thoughts on this?

[Sadleast]

Could be just like an algorithm thing or also that some people doesn't like some of the videos they produce. I think this is a temporary thing because some cool tech things are not far away and will be covered on LTT  I love the Videos since 2014! (discovered his YT in 2014)

[lukestechtips]

Just now, Sadleast said:

Could be just like an algorithm thing or also that some people doesn't like some of the videos they produce. I think this is a temporary thing because some cool tech things are not far away and will be covered on LTT  I love the Videos since 2014! (discovered his YT in 2014)

I like how the #1 most viewed video is a firetruck review. Anyways:

 

Yeah, this is happening to other tech channels too. Their subscriber counts aren't as big as LTT, but they should also have more views.

 

[Sadleast]

4 minutes ago, lukestechtips said:

I like how the #1 most viewed video is a firetruck review. Anyways:

 

Yeah, this is happening to other tech channels too. Their subscriber counts aren't as big as LTT, but they should also have more views.

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Such things happen. I don't worry about it. They produce such good content the views will fly in soon ;D

 

[yathis]

It is because Linus is using such cheesy video thumbnails its getting ridiculous actually.

I am waiting for a stupid WAN show thumbnail, but its always a desk view. Nothing added except title. No dumb INTENTIONAL facial expressions. No added after the fact expressions, where its not even in the video itself.

 

Another factor is Linus is diluting his video's too much. Which is why I get the 3 channel theory. But even in the main one its diluted.

[lukestechtips]

4 hours ago, yathis said:

It is because Linus is using such cheesy video thumbnails its getting ridiculous actually.

I am waiting for a stupid WAN show thumbnail, but its always a desk view. Nothing added except title. No dumb INTENTIONAL facial expressions. No added after the fact expressions, where its not even in the video itself.

 

Another factor is Linus is diluting his video's too much. Which is why I get the 3 channel theory. But even in the main one its diluted.

Honestly, I don't understand why they're doing the "cancerous" thumbnails. In their video explaining why they are doing this, they showed a Guava Juice video with lots of views. The issue with this is, that's a kids channel doing something dumb like filling a bath full of Skittles. 

 

LTT is a tech channel, not a kids channel. Their YouTube stats have shown that there aren't a lot of younger viewers which was the idea behind doing these kinds of thumbnails and clickbait. YouTube may have changed their algorithm, but  part of it is because of these clickbait and "cancerous" thumbnails. I don't see it working effectively. 

[Tiz]

Man sometimes this community SUCKS. YES, SUCKS. I was the first one to be salty about the new thumbnails, and so I showed my disapproval with a couple of dislikes on the first videos with those thumbnails... and then I moved on! Why the fuck current videos has such a ridiculous amount of dislikes? Is this community made of kids or just sad people? Man, I get really pissed off with this, I can't believe people can just step over the effort of creative people like LTT. I can't fucking believe it. Yeah, go ahead, make up some excuses for your dislikes.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

I don't understand your point. One week old videos have much fewer views than the most watched videos ever in the channel... Is that surprising?

I mean, I would get it if the point was that random run-of-the-mill videos today are accumulating views more slowly than random run-of-the-mill videos in the past. But is that the case? Do you have that kind of information on how many views other videos had at an equal distance to release time?

[NvidiaIntelAMDLoveTriangle]

Probably because the content quality went down a couple of years ago, and people just started to notice that and don't bother watching their videos anymore, no matter how clickbaity the thumbnail is.

[Kobathor]

21 minutes ago, lukestechtips said:

Honestly, I don't understand why they're doing the "cancerous" thumbnails. In their video explaining why they are doing this, they showed a Guava Juice video with lots of views. The issue with this is, that's a kids channel doing something dumb like filling a bath full of Skittles. 

 

LTT is a tech channel, not a kids channel. Their YouTube stats have shown that there aren't a lot of younger viewers which was the idea behind doing these kinds of thumbnails and clickbait. YouTube may have changed their algorithm, but  part of it is because of these clickbait and "cancerous" thumbnails. I don't see it working effectively. 

If it wasn't working, they'd change back to their old style of thumbnails. I think he said it in the video: after the change, they were getting more views, so they stuck with it! The new thumbnails stand out in your sub feed and on the recommended bar. 

[lukestechtips]

Just now, Kobathor said:

If it wasn't working, they'd change back to their old style of thumbnails. I think he said it in the video: after the change, they were getting more views, so they stuck with it! The new thumbnails stand out in your sub feed and on the recommended bar. 

Alright, well, still. What's with the views on YouTube now? Popular creators don't get as many views as they used to.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

11 minutes ago, Tiz said:

Yeah, go ahead, make up some excuses for your dislikes.

Maybe there's more to it than just the thumbnails.  Perhaps a growing number of people are just getting tired of the nonsense? 

 

One of the best-received vids lately was the one where Linus ranted on about X299.  No shitty thumbnails (still overly dramatic, but at least no stupid faces), proper content and reasoning rather than all the "hey, watch me drill a hole in a motherboard and then drop it" idiocy that we've been getting for a while now. 

 

I used to watch almost every video back when they were in the previous location (the house).  Quite a bit of cringe and stupidity but nowhere near as over-the-top as nowadays, worse audio and video but at least the interesting content made up for that. 

Nowadays though I find half of them just plain uninteresting and another third have such stupid thumbnails that I don't even want to watch them regardless of the subject.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

1 minute ago, lukestechtips said:

Alright, well, still. What's with the views on YouTube now? Popular creators don't get as many views as they used to.

Once again: is that the case? What is the evidence for it?

[lukestechtips]

5 minutes ago, Tiz said:

Man sometimes this community SUCKS. YES, SUCKS. I was the first one to be salty about the new thumbnails, and so I showed my disapproval with a couple of dislikes on the first videos with those thumbnails... and then I moved on! Why the fuck current videos has such a ridiculous amount of dislikes? Is this community made of kids or just sad people? Man, I get really pissed off with this, I can't believe people can just step over the effort of creative people like LTT. I can't fucking believe it. Yeah, go ahead, make up some excuses for your dislikes.

Besides the fact that you didn't read the original post, why are you getting so pissy about it? I'm wondering why bigger creators (like LTT) aren't getting as many views anymore.

[lukestechtips]

Just now, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Once again: is that the case? What is the evidence for it?

All of the screenshots I provided in my post. It isn't just LTT I've noticed that aren't getting as many views. LTT has 4 million subscribers, I'm quite shocked that quite a number of their videos don't reach 800,000+ views.

[Kobathor]

2 minutes ago, lukestechtips said:

Alright, well, still. What's with the views on YouTube now? Popular creators don't get as many views as they used to.

No idea. I don't see it as different, but I don't pay attention to their views. It's obviously enough to supply a healthy income for their company, so I wouldn't be worried that the channel will die or anything. Everything looks normal to me.

[lukestechtips]

Just now, Kobathor said:

No idea. I don't see it as different, but I don't pay attention to their views. It's obviously enough to supply a healthy income for their company, so I wouldn't be worried that the channel will die or anything. Everything looks normal to me.

Not directly from just YouTube ad revenue. At least, not as much as it used to. They also have the following sources of income:

 

• Twitch ads on The WAN Show
• The Floatplane Club
• Amazon affiliate links
• ADs after the LTT intro
• Merchandise

[Kobathor]

Just now, lukestechtips said:

Not directly from just YouTube ad revenue. At least, not as much as it used to. They also have the following sources of income:

 

• Twitch ads on The WAN Show
• The Floatplane Club
• Amazon affiliate links
• ADs after the LTT intro
• Merchandise

Yes, I understand how they generate income.  long time viewer

[NvidiaIntelAMDLoveTriangle]

34 minutes ago, lukestechtips said:

Honestly, I don't understand why they're doing the "cancerous" thumbnails. In their video explaining why they are doing this, they showed a Guava Juice video with lots of views. The issue with this is, that's a kids channel doing something dumb like filling a bath full of Skittles. 

 

LTT is a tech channel, not a kids channel. Their YouTube stats have shown that there aren't a lot of younger viewers which was the idea behind doing these kinds of thumbnails and clickbait. YouTube may have changed their algorithm, but  part of it is because of these clickbait and "cancerous" thumbnails. I don't see it working effectively. 

I agree with you, but have you watched the fan meet up video?

Just a bunch of kids, that's their audience. That's the majority of them.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

5 minutes ago, lukestechtips said:

All of the screenshots I provided in my post. It isn't just LTT I've noticed that aren't getting as many views.

The screenshots you provided don't let us reach any conclusion.

You showed old videos with a lot of cumulative views (the most viewed ones, not average videos), and then videos from other channels with X views each. You haven't shown that, on average, in the same interval of time, older videos got more views. For all we know, it could be that a typical older video also had 500K views in the first week. Same with other channels: where is the evidence that typical videos used to receive more views in the first week (or month, or whatever)? It may be true, but there is no basis in this thread to conclude it so far.

5 minutes ago, lukestechtips said:

 

LTT has 4 million subscribers, I'm quite shocked that quite a number of their videos don't reach 800,000+ views.

That's completely personal. You may have had the belief that 4 million subs channels got more than 800K views in one week, but without showing us that was the case in the past, it may have just been a wrong belief. Maybe you are just learning that the link between subscribers and 1st week viewers isn't what you thought it was.

 

To discuss why something change, first we need to make sure that anything changed, and for that we need 1st week viewership data for all videos, not 1st week vs 4 years data. We need a "before and after" picture of the same object.

[lukestechtips]

Just now, NvidiaIntelAMDLoveTriangle said:

I agree with you, but have you watched the fan meet up video?

Just a bunch of kids, that's their audience. That's the majority of them.

I meant younger kids. Like 10-14. In my opinion, that's where clickbait and those kind of thumbnails are commonplace and effective. Most LTT viewers (from what I've seen) are older teens.