Inside YouTube's New View Count, Monetization Rules, and Netflix Fight

0:00Star Wars The Mandalorian and Grogu is now streaming on Disney+.

0:05Samir Chaudry:What are you waiting for? Hop on. The must-see galactic adventure comes home on Disney+. This is the way. Our only chance is to work together. I like this kid. Always wear your seatbelt. Star Wars The Mandalorian and Grogu, now streaming on Disney+. Read PG-13. Over the past few weeks, there have been some major updates and major announcements that have to do with YouTube and how it operates. YouTube is all out of whack. Can't make more money if you're not in the partner program now, can we? And a lot of people are upset about this. This is going to mess everything up for a while. There could be some major changes for creators.

0:49So today we're going to break down three different updates and announcements and tell you what they mean. The first update, YouTube changed how they count views. It now counts as soon as the video starts playing, even if that's on the homepage, autoplay. As soon as frame one hits, it counts as a view. What was it before? I saw Rene Ritchie, the creator liaison from YouTube, talking about this. And in response to someone on Twitter who said that it was 30 seconds, he said, no, it's actually just some seconds. Yeah, he said YouTube doesn't specify, this is the quote, YouTube doesn't specify how many seconds because it can vary from situations.

1:28And so people can't game what that view system is. They don't tell you the specific number of seconds. So I wonder if it was like a percentage of what the video was before.

1:39Samir Chaudry:Maybe. Yeah, it's really interesting because this is obviously like this metric is the basis of this economy. It is the game. It's the game, right? It is the basis of the economy in terms of like this dictates your advertising rates. It dictates also in terms of like AdSense, how much money you make through AdSense. Public perception. Dictates perception. And depending on actually this size and scale, it dictates your ability to build other businesses. That one is dependent on fans, not necessarily views. but views have been a foundation to this business and the advertising business. So the premise that this is calculated on like a immediate first frame is really interesting.

2:29Samir Chaudry:This happened a while ago with Facebook. Do you remember when Facebook launched video? And that was calculated like just so long as it started playing, it was a view. people have a lot of criticism about Twitter or X and its viewership because of this same thing that those feel inflated but this on YouTube feels like a pretty different change and to be fair CPMs and the revenue behind it will be based off of the old view calculation which is now called engaged views that creators will be able to see in studio so a couple things here I thought about this over the weekend quite a bit And I thought about it through the lens of like, number one, if we think about this as creators, and then let's think about it through advertisers.

3:15Samir Chaudry:Because those are the two people who engage with views beyond viewers. Yep. Right? So first, as creators, I did a lot of thinking about this. I think the view count, the public view count, has actually never been the thing that informs us that we're making something that people are watching. Does that make sense? What does inform us? Conversation. If people tweet about our stuff, if they come up to us and say, hey, I loved that episode, you and I over our past 15 years have engaged with episodes that we've made through other people talking about them. That's when we know we made something that people are watching.

3:54Samir Chaudry:I would say yes. And especially when we talk about creators at large, like when we have talked about Mr. Beast over the years, we are largely talking about like the amount of viewership It's still a metric that we hold and talk about to compare. Of course. I'm not negating that. I'm just saying as a creator, if the view count wasn't public, if it didn't exist, you would know if people are watching your stuff or not. There's like a feeling to it. Yeah. At the same time, this number is deeply rooted in our own self-worth, our own egos, our understanding of ourselves in the relative context of creators.

4:39Samir Chaudry:Like, where do we stack up in the world? So it means a lot. Like, to have this number change is actually very significant. But if it's changing for everyone, isn't it kind of changing for no one? You're just going to have whatever the new standard is going to be. Yeah, that might be true. I actually have no idea. And isn't more better? Or is the perception that if it's just counted upon first glance, that it's not as valuable? That would require a level of nuance that I'm not positive exists in our world. I would agree. I would agree. I think this is a very pro-creator move from YouTube through the lens of the advertising industry.

5:19Samir Chaudry:So now back to the advertisers, I think like the most nuanced advertisers are going to have to understand a variety of signals to know if they want to invest in a creator. I think that already existed before. But one of those signals, I think, is like offline activation. Like if a creator throws an event, you're like, how many people showed up? Was it packed? Did it sell out quickly? A great example of this is when we went with Jimmy to the American Dream Mall. Nobody knew we were coming out of the pandemic at that time. Jimmy had gone from maybe 10 or 30 million subscribers, upwards of like a hundred, nobody knew how many people were going to show up that day.

5:59Samir Chaudry:He didn't know. And we showed up and the place was packed. In that moment, I think there's this very famous clip that I was filming behind Jimmy and he goes over the balcony and you see just the sea of people in the mall. That clip was used in every sizzle reel about creators because it was this like, that's an audience, right? So I think like the signal from an advertising perspective now is going to be a variety of other things if you are incredibly nuanced as an advertiser. If you are not, I think creators are about to get paid more money. So let me ask you a question about one of our own videos.

6:35In the YouTube of yesterday, our episode about hankering and AI has 250 ,000 views. If you actually look at the impressions, the amount of times that video was shown to people, it's 2.6 million. So in the YouTube of today, moving forward, you could argue that that video may live closer to 2.6 million views. I don't think so.

6:57Samir Chaudry:No, because that's impressions of the thumbnail. Yeah, but like... That's not autoplays. There may be some autoplays. There's likely some autoplays in there. I could see a world where it shoots up to like a million views. Yeah, let's say it lives at a million. Yeah. Fine. So let's say it lives at a million. Yeah. Sounds good to me. Feels good. Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean. Because that video had impact. Like people were talking about it. Yeah. This is going to sound maybe not related, but I actually think it really is. and the way that when we were first coming up on YouTube, YouTube really leaned into a lot of creators and like put them on subways in New York and on billboards everywhere.

7:27Samir Chaudry:I think this is somewhat of a scaled equivalent of that because to the broader world, we likely all look and feel bigger. That's a really good point. So I'll pull this section directly from their update. Yeah. Their quote is, we hope that having metric parity across all formats gives creators a clearer picture of their overall exposure and makes it easier to confidently express their true scale and value to brand partners and sponsors. That's fair. To bring up your marketing point, like if we are, if I look at Colin and Samir as a billboard and I want to know how many people just saw us, engaged with us, this metric is closer to that and at least it is the same across all of our formats.

8:09Go ahead, Sid. You got something. I think the fact that every view is now the same across shorts, long form, everywhere, that is probably the best part of this update. The rest, my hot take is that I don't know how much it really is going to matter in even like six months from now when everyone catches on. Because right now you're saying like it gives creators the opportunity to get paid more. When advertisers find out that it, like what the new relative good is for a video, it's not going to matter anymore. I think this was a pretty neutral move.

8:41Samir Chaudry:But I think also advertisers will have a sense and probably have a better sense, the most sophisticated ones have been in this industry for a long time. They know when something is working or not working. But yeah, if they're spending, like, I... I don't think it matters. I don't think this... Yeah, yeah, you're right. I don't know, actually. Let me bring up a creator, though, who's actually really unhappy with this. Okay. Okay. So this is Nassire Nasdaily, who we know we've had on the show. He sent this out on X. Social media is in crisis mode. Followers, an outdated term. No guarantee of seeing your content again.

9:13So it's not followers. It's just one-time positive interactions. Views. YouTube was the last holdout and now they folded. All view counts are fake. Most videos have a completion rate of 5 % or less. So 1 million views is effectively 50 ,000 real humans watching. Revenue non-existent on any platform except for YouTube longs. And even that will probably change soon. This brings us to today. Millions of broke creators competing for a chance to pop up in reels to be viewed once by extremely bored users and forgotten forever. The platforms win, users and creators lose. This is the worst period for social media.

9:50The creator economy did not deliver for the masses. It delivered for the top 1 % of creators and four platforms. That's it. And the sad thing is, I don't even know where to start to fix it. The one thing that sticks out to me there is that the creator economy didn't deliver for the masses. I think there's a big difference between social media and the creator economy. And the post begins by saying that social media is in crisis. I think social media is currently a product that is delivering for the masses. It is no longer social.

10:22Samir Chaudry:Right. But it is a form of media that is delivering and made for the masses. The creator economy is an economy like any other that is not built in a way that it is for as many people as possible, for the masses. Yeah. Is it, is it one of the biggest economies? Meaning like everyone who's on Instagram could potentially make a run at being like a creator, meaning like an independent media platform that is generating ad revenue. Like everyone on the internet, there's not really a barrier. Like there was a friend of a friend who, you know, I got connected with because they were like, a friend doesn't know what to do.

11:06Samir Chaudry:He started doing parenting advice on Instagram. Now he has half a million followers. What do you think you should do? And I was like, how fascinating that you can right now, just anybody in the world with a phone and internet connection could participate in this economy. I think it works the best. The creator economy works the best for those at the top, like any industry does. But I think it is one of the last meritocracies standing where it could be you tomorrow. You could be there. And it's not who you know. Sometimes it is, but I think anyone out there with a phone and an idea has the opportunity to become the top of the top.

11:47And that is what is so enticing about it and what still works about it.

11:52Samir Chaudry:I think there's like two things happening. There's the creator economy, and then there's the entertainment business. And what happens is like the top 1 % are engaging in the entertainment business. Right? Meaning like that is heavily relationship spaced. It's heavily like you have to navigate the entertainment business to, to elevate. And heavily temperamental. Like you could be in it and then out of it. But just like the entertainment business. Exactly. Just like an actor or a musician, like you can get hot and lose it. The top 1 % cycles in cycles out. Yeah. But the, but the, the creator economy is more, when I think about that term, it's more about like the amount of people who can make money by producing independent media, not like make millions and millions of dollars.

12:38It's just like you can generate if you're making good content.

12:43Samir Chaudry:We know a lot of people that sustain a good living. You can make a living wage. You can make a additional wage doing it. You can also make a living wage if you're not the creator, if you're working with and for the creator. That's right. Yeah. Hey there, Sid. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know about this premise of like it didn't deliver for the masses. Yeah, it seems a little too doomer-pilled where I think like the two things can be true where it's like there are issues in terms of like I think we are ending up in a bigger barbell distribution where most money is going to the top and it's like coming from things that were middle and the bottom.

13:21But at the same time, it's like, it feels hacky to say, but it's like there's never been a better time to have the exposure and be able to make it. All of that opportunity is still there.

13:33Samir Chaudry:And there's never been a more competitive time to join the top 1 % of creators, right? That is also true because there's more creators than ever. It's extraordinarily competitive at the top. Let's talk about the next update from YouTube because that one is about monetization monetization, and it does seem to make it more competitive. Yeah. So the next update, starting in February, 2027, new channels will need double the long form watch hours and double the shorts views to hit partner. So that would be going up from 4 ,000 watch hours to 8 ,000 watch hours and from 10 million shorts views to 20 million shorts views.

14:13And on top of that, for monetization on shorts, it requires a rolling minimum of 10 million views in a 90 day period to get paid. So if you have 9 million views over 90 days, you will not get that money from shorts. A lot of people online have been saying that this new policy was put in place by YouTube in order to combat the influx of AI content that has entered the platform, which I think is an interesting take. However, the flip side of that is a lot of creators and people online have also been saying that this will only encourage more AI use, more outsourcing to programs because now shorts creators specifically have to keep up with 10 million views every 90 days, which is a really hard feat to get.

15:04If you are not already in the program or if you are in the program, you have to keep that cadence every 90 days. It makes it way more of a game. And so now you probably will have to cut some corners or put out way more content and what's going to help you do that.

15:19Samir Chaudry:Or just higher viewership content. Yeah. Obviously that's really hard. That's luck though. In order to like to do your part to keep up the cadence, you're probably going to post more. Yeah. So why do you guys think that YouTube made this change to making it harder? I think it's like any other situation like the NBA, right? It's like there's limited spots, right? Don't you think? And it's harder to make it. Is that too simple to say? I think it definitely plays into it. Right? Like it's more competitive. And also I think, okay, here's the first thing. I think shorts monetization has always been something that YouTube has tried to solve.

16:01Samir Chaudry:They've tried it multiple times over of like, how do we get shorts creators paid now? The money that doesn't get paid to someone who doesn't meet this threshold, does that not go to the pool that is now basically a smaller group of creators who get paid more? Yeah. Right. So then now like the ones who are really going after it on short form, which is a lot of people get paid more. Yeah. Yeah. So, So then again, like the same way that like if there's a smaller group of top performers, they get rewarded better. It's great for mid to large creators. It's really discouraging for the smaller creators that are trying to break into it and want to put in time and effort and be rewarded for that time and effort.

16:47I look at it though as a, it's a, you know, to be a creator with YouTube, to be in the partner program is a business relationship. and they are the ones, obviously, clearly, who tell you what it means to be in a business relationship with them. Yeah. Right? So to Samir's point of the NBA, like, you have to be a certain level of caliber and player and show a level of performance and an opportunity to make money for the NBA, to play for an NBA team. And that bar may raise over time. And so there is an element of that.

17:20Samir Chaudry:Okay, so let me just also paint a picture because we are not, I would not classify us as shorts creators. We post shorts, but we're not shorts creators. Done about a million engaged views in the past 28 days on shorts. And we've generated$189. So if we look at three months going at this rate, we're not going to hit it. It's also going to be$400 in three months. So - Which is a lot for someone who's not you. Sure. Yeah, it can be a lot for sure. But the suggestion of YouTube, I think, of what's happening is like the person who's 10 million and up, who's in the thousands of dollars of revenue in three months, we should reward them more.

18:01It just doesn't feel like it's, I guess, for the smaller -

18:05Samir Chaudry:I agree with you that like 400 bucks to a creator who's just starting out, like that's not nothing at all. Yeah, that's really exciting and it is encouraging. Like the first few AdSense checks we got were really encouraging to keep going. And I think, I don't know if this is the case, but I think if YouTube shows you like that you have technically earned this money from the platform, I don't think it should be taken back. I think it should be held in an account until it is at a sizable amount that makes sense to sort of cut that check for YouTube. Yeah. Right. I think it's, I would not recommend showcasing that people have earned a level of money that they're not going to get paid.

18:44Samir Chaudry:Yeah. If that's the case. I think it is, right? Because again, these dollars, if we don't get to$10 million in the next three months, we're not - It definitely provides incentive to reach the viewership you need and the thresholds, but it sets an interesting precedent to not get paid. Yeah, I think it's getting really interesting because we have some - We know a lot of creators, right? We talked to a lot of creators through creator support. We engage with a lot of creators at many different levels of where they are in their creator journey. And I think the short form creator right now is finding more success on Instagram than they are on YouTube unless their content is like incredibly native to YouTube.

19:20Finding success in a views and engagement way and in a brand partnerships way.

19:26Samir Chaudry:Both. Yeah. All the above. Okay. And like we know one creator specifically who based on this change just got knocked off the YouTube partner program. I know someone else who also. Yeah, I'm sure we all know like a decent amount of people who are no longer in the partner program. And we'll have to work their way to get back there. I think the challenge is it's going to be much more attractive, like to keep posting on Instagram and build your business there. The same way when we were sitting in our new season of creator support, there's a lot of short form creators that we talked to that didn't even post their short form to YouTube because they were like, it just like doesn't go anywhere.

20:02Yeah. And it's not always going to be the creators that are at$400 that are missing out on this. There are going to be creators who are losing a few thousand dollars every few months. I don't know, though.

20:13Samir Chaudry:I don't think so. Someone responded to our email, actually, when we posted about, or when we published an article about this in the Publish Press. Subscribe. Someone responded and gave us a breakdown of exactly how much he was going to be missing out on because of these changes. And it was a couple thousand dollars. their RPM would have to be so high, right? I guess, yeah. And, you know, I'm not a shorts creator, so I don't really know the ins and outs. But the numbers that they gave were pretty accurate to what I assume, I don't think they were lying. And they were like, I don't know what I'm going to do.

20:50I don't know how I'm going to pay the people that are working for me on this stuff.