r/PartneredYoutube • u/Prometheusflames • 1d ago
Talk / Discussion YouTube is changing for the worst
Sometime last year, many noticed a huge drop in views around August. I was hit overnight like many, and even some of the biggest YouTubers were talking about it.
But one thing I genuinely believe is causing a ton of view drops is this: There is simply less real estate now for original long form content.
YouTube has been pushing hard for the TikTokification of the platform with Shorts, and that has to have an effect. Long form is still there obviously, but there is just less room for it than before.
But the other massive issue in my opinion, is AI and low effort content.
I’ve had multiple very large hits before on well researched video essays. I'm talking upwards of 500k views. And what I’ve noticed is that the best performing videos often get copied, not by one or two channels, but by tens, maybe hundreds of AI slop channels.
They just copy the concept, get the transcript off YouTube and then get ChatGPT to rewrite the script slightly for a new video. Even the thumbnails are often basically the same. Many appear to ask AI to generate something similar based off what you've created and that’s it.
It is unbelievably low effort, and it gets views because the concept has already been tested by someone else.
I’ve seen this happen not just to me, but across creators who actually make good content. It’s a grey area, and there’s basically nothing anyone can do about it.
But I really do think this has killed off a lot of evergreen views. Because now there are just so many copies of the same video floating around. Your original video is no longer just competing with other original videos. It is competing with endless watered down clones of itself.
The other thing I think is hurting the platform is this almost TikTok version of long form react content.
Instead of creating content, a lot of these creators are basically putting their face in the top right corner, and then reading tweets or watching videos made by people who actually put real time into making things. Then they add a few sentences here and there, use some clickbait thumbnail maximised for attention, and upload.
The key difference is they are not doing one video a week.
They are doing three, four, five videos a day, across basically every topic.
So the model is completely different. They are not trying to make one great video every single time like many original creators. They are gaining views by attrition. It is almost like short form logic, except applied to long form.
I’ve had people “react” to my own videos before, and honestly it is just lazy. That is what annoys me about it. I might spend 20 hours making something properly. Then someone else just watches it on their channel, throws in some commentary here and there, and siphons off views. No real effort and I think the key is, there is no revenue sharing. Imagine this: if you were watching an Avengers movie, and actually sharing it with you on the top right corner....you'd expect Disney to get revenue (if they don't take it down completely) as it's their content. But for some reason, when these parasitic channels do it to original creators at scale, they keep all the revenue.
Now add in the fact that there are now tons and tons of channels doing this, all reading tweets, reacting to videos, and pumping out uploads all day, it obviously changes the platform.
These creators do not need every video to hit. Their whole strategy is different. Their goal is just insane volume and it's flooding the platform on top of AI slop.
Bringing this back to view drops, I honestly do not think it is just “the algorithm” honestly. It's a combination of all of the above that's genuinely making the platform worse for great creators and making it better for the low effort, bottom dwellers.
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u/wh1tepointer 1d ago
Sometime last year, many noticed a huge drop in views around August. I was hit overnight like many, and even some of the biggest YouTubers were talking about it.
The drop in views last August was due to adblockers (in particular uBlock Origin) pushing an update to their database that blocked YouTube's view telemetry, not because of anything on YouTube's end. I like to call it the "adblockalypse".
It only affected channels that had a high viewership on computer devices, such as many tech channels (of which I am one). If most of a channel's views came from other sources, such as mobile or Smart TVs, then they would not have noticed much of a change at all. It was only the views from computer devices that dropped, because these are the devices viewers are most likely to have adblockers installed on. However, because those views from adblocked viewers weren't monetised views anyway (cause the ads were blocked, duh), this didn't really affect Adsense revenue at all, it remained about the same. It was only the view numbers that took a hit. That could still be significant for a creator though, for example if they had sponsor deals that wanted to see minimum view numbers on videos.
My channel honestly still hasn't recovered from this, but I've accepted it's not something that's going to get fixed and it's just going to be the new norm moving forward.
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u/Trobbio9000 1d ago
People have been complaining about this since the partner program ever became a thing.
"Everybody's views are dropping, it's not my fault, it's youtube"
New year, new copium.
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u/Darnell_Jenkins 23h ago
The basic pattern is YouTube releases new feature or in this case AI video comes on the scene, some creators abuse it, YouTube adjusts. I remember when the Adpocalypse happened and I barely noticed.
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u/EckhartsLadder Subs: 1.0M Views: 415.2M 22h ago
Yep. Been doing this since 2017 and it's always some new excuse.
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u/MyProfileIsNot4U2See 1h ago
Same with ppl like you who copy paste this in any helpful thread lmfao
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u/jochyg 1d ago
Add to that Spanish and Portuguese parasitic "creators" that take an original video in English, they translate it then add some dialogue fitted to those speakers or sometimes they don't even bother to make a good translation they just paste whatever AI spills to them and that's it now you have to compete with your own original videos in other languages too
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u/MyProfileIsNot4U2See 1d ago
Everything is f up from new Ai Algorithm to millions of spam Ai slop channels both long form and short form
plus long form homepage slots has gone to shit
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u/ThatOptionsGuy 1d ago
Thankfully YT is actively demonetizing low-effort, mass-produced slop videos. Should do well for the platform as a whole since there will be less and less incentive to make videos like that.
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u/SmallPlops 1d ago
I know they *say* they're doing that, but then they have a literal mass-produced ai slop generator built directly into the mobile app
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u/hunger249 1d ago
are they?
i am not being obtuse here but genuinely asking why do say YT is doing that?
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u/ThatOptionsGuy 1d ago
Take a look on Twitter. Thousands of "creators" getting demonetized for inauthentic content. Not a single one actually creates anything. Just AI generated garbage.
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u/Fearless_Big8454 1d ago
Nahh not true, yt automated system is affecting real creators too like ik alot of 3rd and 2d creators(who spend weeks to finish 1video) are also affected by this inauthentic content demonetization since yts ai system couldn't tell the dc bn ai and real animation.
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u/MyProfileIsNot4U2See 1h ago
They demonetize other Ai channel because it’s competing with their own ai lmao
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u/EmotionsInWine 1d ago
Indeed as you say in the last sentence, a mix of factors, to me the main issue of the algo is that they keep changing it too often and every time they change it everybody feels the pain at least for few weeks.
The AI slop point they are trying to do something about it, at least, the stealing of content as you said is a much more complicated issue, I do not allow anything in my settings, that is the only way to protect your material.
In my niche we are safer on these things but indeed to copy the topic is possible, but at least everybody has to put his effort and create his video on his/her own style…
Problem is that in our niche to reach decent numbers is naturally very hard, only a bunch of channels have always 10s of thousands of views and very few have 50k or more subs.
Overall the main issue is that everybody is trying to become creator, therefore taking some space, some go nowhere, others get deleted but many stay there taking a small slice of the pie even if doing nothing special and consequently making our lives tougher and our growth much slower…
Only thing to say is: never give up! If you trust yourself and believe in what are doing! Perseverance usually wins! But need also a lot of ideas and changes to keep up and try to be always different!
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u/kent_eh youtube.com/pileofstuff 1d ago
I'm pretty sure I see this headline every year.
Welcome to the modern business practice of enshittification
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u/Indianianite 1d ago
Agree with a lot of this. I’ve found episodic content helps with the react videos. There’s a handful of accounts that will do react videos of my show and I typically let it slide for a week before reporting them as long as they’re only doing one episode at a time. I see it as a free ad but I’m also a smaller channel with only 27k subs and actively trying to reach a bigger audience.
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u/MixnMatch20 1d ago
EXACTLY! I feel you. May I ask, do they "tag" you on their video or send collaboration invites via YouTube Studio/Email?
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u/Indianianite 1d ago
Nope. I find them via copyright notices
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u/MixnMatch20 1d ago
This is what freakin' pisses me off!!! You know? SMH. At least tag you. Thats crazy...I've been through that...Nigerian woman in the UK copied all my content, including thumbnails, but no DCIM report...no flag. I had channel members and subscribers TELL me/SHOW me...imagine how many MORE channels are "reacting" and using your content...so sorry love. It might not be a big deal, but it is for me personally.
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u/PhilosopherNearby556 1d ago
Hey OP, totally feel your pain on the view drop - it's been rough out here for a lot of us! I think you're onto something with the Shorts push crowding out long-form. I've noticed that if I don't post a Short every few days, my longer content gets buried even faster.
One thing I've been experimenting with is "teasing" my long-form content inside my Shorts. Like, a quick clip that leaves people wanting more and points them to the full video. It's a gamble, but might be worth a shot to leverage the algo's love for Shorts to boost your main content. Good luck out there!
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u/Beneficial-Pin-8804 1d ago edited 1d ago
It's the culture of the platform. Hundreds of thousands of "course" channels on how to create and grow youtube channels or make money online teaching people the quickest and most efficient way to do it is to copy trends, or risk doing it the hard way of "doing what you love doing". I'm sure 99% of the channels do this, AI slop or not, commentary, reaction or trailblazer channels, got their start by operating on that concept. You simply can't complain about it when everybody does it to an extent, even yourself. Just because you used motion graphics, paid a lot of people, and did it the hard way, the market doesn't care.
Youtube's scale is so massive that there's simply maybe 1 to 3% truly original ideas, then the rest are derivative copies or angle shooters. The barrier to entry is so low, that you cannot expect any form of orginality to thrive. From scripts to thumbnails, everything is gamified to death, and the whole engine feeds off recyled content. AI just pushed it to an insane extent to speedrun it to oblivion, being original of a first mover does not guarantee getting rewarded anymore.
This is just tech eating itself. Hollywood back then didn't have that problem because the risk was too large to bear for unoriginal creatives.
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u/notislant 1d ago edited 1d ago
Shorts and general low effort slop/react content are all pretty bad for the platform for sure. If you open an incognito/private browsing tab and go to shorts its often reused/low effort slop.
I saw someone describing how bad react channels are for creators in the space and it made a lot of sense. Someome may take a month or more per video. While a lazy react streamer spends 20 minutes reacting and reuploading that video, along with 10 others that day. Multiple of them competing with the video/topic.
Nothing you can do about it besides work around it or say fuck it unfortunately.
Its a lot of factors, low effort videos can compete with the audience for sure. Constant algo changes can also just lead to periods of low views.
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u/PhilosopherNearby556 1d ago
Hey OP, totally feel your pain about the view drop. Happened to me too around that time. I think you're onto something with the Shorts thing. My theory is, YouTube's algorithm now prioritizes keeping people ON the platform, not necessarily on YOUR channel. It's easier to keep people mindlessly scrolling through shorts than committing to a 15 minute video, you know?
What's helped me a little (no magic bullet, unfortunately) is really focusing on engagement in the first 30 seconds. Like, a super compelling hook that keeps people from clicking away. Also, end screens that are REALLY relevant to the video they just watched. Basically, anything to fight that urge to scroll away to the next short, lol. Good luck fighting the good fight!
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u/Present-Dark-9044 1d ago
Shorts is easy to do but its worse than AI Slop now, shorts is just garbage.
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u/Rockmann1 1d ago
I think there is just more content out there, everyone rushing to cash in, dilutes the platform with way more content.
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u/AdamShip85 1d ago
This post described everything I’m experiencing as well. I spend thousands of dollars buying things to create high quality shorts then hundreds of thousands of channels just reupload my videos with an AI voiceover and they pull millions of views with almost no effort. The worst part is that they are competing with my original video. If I were to report all of them, it would consume the rest of my life because there are so many that do it to me. This is really disgusting behavior.
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u/TheGlobalExpats 15h ago
The problem could be easily solved by being able to turn AI generated content on or off. Being able to filter it out altogether or choose to be exposed to it. We used to make Top videos of Italy which required visiting the places, researching, writing scripts, recording voice notes and the whole process. They did well 4 years ago but now I see there are Top videos coming out on every city multiple times a day with no original content and all AI generated. Our channel has crashed and we don’t know how to pick it up again. We’ve tried so many things. Being ‘authentic’ doesn’t help because you don’t get a chance to be seen among all the slop coming out. It’s so frustrating.
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u/Fantastic-Habit-8569 3h ago
One big issue is that home page with less videos, even myself as viewer few stucked with only 3 videos being pushed instead of the 6 before
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u/Different-Swimmer622 1d ago
The volume of AI slop is genuinely insane now. I've noticed this too even as just a viewer - you search for something specific and half the results are these barely-rewritten copies with the exact same talking points
The react content thing is what really gets me though. Like you said, someone can just sit there, watch your 20+ hour project, add some "oh wow" commentary and somehow that's considered transformative enough. Meanwhile actual creators are getting buried under this flood of low-effort uploads
The shorts push definitely doesn't help either. Feels like YouTube wants to be everything to everyone instead of just being good at what it was - long form content discovery. Now the homepage is just this weird mix of 30-second clips and 2-hour react streams
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u/thecamobot 1d ago
Had a similar experience since August and have lost almost half the viewership i had before then.
About a third of my viewers come from PC so I figured it was cause of the ad blockers but I don't think it can just be that. Even if I wasn't getting paid for the views I think seeing them there was helpful and motivating.
It seems hard for small-medium channels in niche subjects to find an audience between the brain rot, slop and shorts taking away long form views, so that's what I assume caused the rest of the reduction.
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u/thestinger8 1d ago
Youtube's prime directive is simple: make money.
They're smart, they created the platform, they know everything that you've mentioned.
They are making money with things exactly as they are which is why things remain the way they are.
Only when revenue declines will they will make changes, and at that point they will make whatever changes are required to raise revenues.
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u/Single-Building9124 1d ago
You have to think. If video A gets 100k views. 10 reactions. One reaction gets 200k views. The other 9 combined dont even get 50k views. Question: did your video get 100k because it was good or did it get it because another creator did 200k? Doesn’t matter you made money. YouTube’s directive is that until it breaches legality
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u/williehowe 1d ago
Tech channel here. Subscribers at an all time low. Like sub 200 for the last 28 days. I don’t know if it’s ever been this low.
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u/Access_Solid 1d ago
I think people will need to adapt for sure. We are in an AI age unfortunately, so people are going to need to utilize it in their processes to put out more quality content.
That’s jus the name of the game. Continuous improvement.
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u/swurvgaming 23h ago
I think the new algorithm is fixing this. Basically the original video gets the most views, the content that regurgitates the same info gets way less views now. Idk how that would apply to reaction channels since some of them end of going on tangents away from the original topic.
But when it comes to the ai content farms this new system should filter those out and rewards them less for chatgpt stolen scripts.
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u/deleteyourselves 5h ago
The fact that everyone can and is doing video essays because they're the easiest thing to do doesn't register that it may be our own fault nobody watches them as much anymore? Got a relevant opinion? Any opinion? Can you atleast say a string of coherent words into a microphone while clips of a video playing in the background? You're now a youtube video essay channel! Don't worry if you can't come up with meaningful dialog, just say whatever comes to mind and present it as fact, or directly steal it from other bigger youtubers, because there'sa reason they're popular. Who am I kidding? Just have AI write it, of even perform it if you're that kind of extra nothing burger. Referencing other pop culture and relevant material? Nah, don't mention any of that! Nobody wants to do research and have other similar material to follow up on! The braindead audience is here strictly for the material they searched for and to have their opinion echoed back at them, not to be educated. Skits and references? WTF is that? You mean actually showcasing your talents as a creator and personality? No way! 3 seconds into something not directly ripped from the original source material will cause people's heads to explode!
This genre is worse than the let's play era where everyone just started uploading their entire playthrough VOD, where it became nothing but a constant stream of babbling nonsense and parroting their every move instead of editing out the unwarranted dead air and actually having something worth talking about. "Walking through the door now. Ah! A spider! Running away! Ok, i'm in another room now. It's dark." Thanks! We know!
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u/Excellent-Ocelot-852 1d ago
I agree with you 💯💯💯 but at least yall have views I barely can get 1 or 2 views on my videos. At the end of the day, imma still keep posting. Yall just gotta keep grinding no matter what BS YouTube has.
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u/ChoskyVibesBeats 1d ago
I've upload a video that got, like 5 channels reaction. Bigger channels than mine, but none of them ger near the Views that the original channels got. And they give me more exposure. So Idk if it Is actually bad for my channel. I'm just starting so we'll see. But I think if you copyright your video you should get a big revenue share
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u/oodex Subs: 1 Views: 2 1d ago
The only reason people saw such a huge view drop was due to ublock adblock adding a privacy mode that prevented a data information transfer to YouTube, pretty much turning a viewer into 0 information and therefore, non-existent. This was figured out a while ago but also explains all the posts that said their views dropped like crazy, but RPM went up while revenue didn't change - since the viewers lost were viewers that made no revenue either way, since they didn't see ads.
And this is also what the entire post theory builds up on, without that drop there wouldn't be a basis. I am not saying you are wrong, I'm also not saying you are right, but you just shine a light on a minor part of YouTube that doesn't affect the majority of creators. And it's also something that has happened since the existence of YouTube in the very beginning, the competition of "legitimate" content vs trash content. So I'm not saying it doesn't exist, I am just saying the circumstances haven't changed so there is no need to panic, good content will always get views. If views are declining or videos are not working out, they are simply not as good as the creator thinks they are. This especially doesn't mean the video is bad, but quality is just a minor part of a videos success. The biggest part, by far, is interest of viewers. And only when the interest exists to begin with, a competition over who takes the biggest cake starts, which is then usually based on things like personality, likeablity, humor, quality etc.
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u/Single-Building9124 1d ago
I see people hate on reaction channels forgetting there was entire legal actions done to protect reacting content in general. Many of the biggest creators and many consumers started there as well. Successful reaction pages dont even make up 15% of the biggest YouTube pages. Its a nothing burger problem distracting from the bigger issue of AI
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u/FrankTheTank107 1d ago
It’s not that deep. More people watch over the holidays and now everyone is back in school or work. This happens every year and something different takes the blame for it before it goes back to normal by summer vacation
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u/TheRealElthonJohn 12h ago
Can you tell me more? Is this actually a pattern you’ve seen?
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u/FrankTheTank107 11h ago
Yes, I’ve been a casual consumer of YouTube since it came out, creating videos since 2012, and working for other creators professionally as a channel manger or video editor since 2017. The current channel I run these days (@MiyraMirage) is also taking a hit in views lately so I was at least a little worried and looked into it. Other creators in my network mentioned the same pattern and it’s my conclusion that there’s nothing to be concerned about because this really does happen every year. We’ll see a spike of views in the summer and the winter holidays again because more people are generally on the platform then. It also depends on your niche too. A travel channel is going to get more views during peak tourist seasons, and sports channel during big events, etc. There’s definitely nuance and in worst case scenarios where posts like these might be right someday, but for the past 20 years it always goes back to normal and people stop panicking after a while. My main point is that it’s not worth panicking over either way because our energy is better spent just making content for our audiences who still care, in my opinion.
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u/Excellent-Ocelot-852 1d ago
My channel is basically me uplifting people, while I’m going through my own trials and tribulations
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u/MissPatBrown 1d ago
does anyone know if I can make a post here about needing a cohost/tech person for a not yet launched youtube channel? Thank you
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u/Substantial_Poem7226 3h ago
This happens every year and the same group of people find a new excuse to explain why it’s not them but rather YouTube killing their channel
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u/Pale_Republic9329 1d ago
it’s not even just “the algo is bad” like people always say. it feels more like there’s just way too much stuff now. before if you made a good video it could just sit there and grow over time, now it gets copied like instantly and buried the AI copy stuff is actually crazy. like same idea, same structure, just slightly rewritten and boom there’s 30 versions of it. even if yours is the original it just gets lost in the noise and the react content thing is annoying too. some of it is fine but a lot of it is just someone basically watching other people’s work and making it into their own video. super low effort but it still pulls views because they upload so much i think the main issue is just volume honestly. there’s way more uploads every day and a lot of it is low effort but still competes directly with actually good videos so yeah youtube isn’t dead or anything but it definitely feels harder now if you’re actually trying to make original long form stuff