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"Very dramatic shift" - Linus Tech Tips opens up about the channel's declining viewership
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this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2025
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Folks here are missing the point blaming LTT for the drop. This has been a sudden drop, too sudden to be fatigue or audience tastes changing.
Also I can see the same on my own channel. About 2 weeks ago views suddenly dropped to a third of the usual views. And even high performing videos have had trouble getting views since. Even videos with a high impression percentage are getting lower than average views.
The same wsd also reported by Second Wind (old Zero Punctuation) and their experience is the same: way too sudden drop to be anything else except YouTube adjusting their algorithm.
Thanks for the analysis. I've got to say. We on Lemmy can be vicious.
Yeah, it's easy to bark at influencer we don't like.
I think his org has consistently done its best and I still tune in across the channels. I know that I couldn't do better with matched resources, without experience and a lot more considerations.
Listening to everyone hate on a whole media group puzzles me a bit.
LTT has done bad things and never apologized. For example he copied a gamersnexus script and never acknowledged it.
And stole an item to auction off! I can’t believe people here defend their ass D:
In their video, Yahtzee said it could be related to Restricted Mode on youtube suddenly turns on by itself. Or at least that's their hypothesis, since they checked that if that mode is on, a lot of their videos vanished from their channel.
They're wrong, my channel has under 4% viewers in the up to 18 year segment, this effect is way bigger than if I lost then completely. Also my channel features no swearing or inappropriate content so, it should not affect it at all if this was the case.
It's not about what your viewers are, it's about what youtube now automatically hides by default. They show it in the video.
Yes, but even if they hid everything I have from teens and suspended teens, the drop would be way less. And that's why I think they are wrong about the reason for the drop.
Tierzoos theory is because formats that were good for the past years (8-10 min videos) are less popular now with the advent of shorts. And people are watching yt on their TVs now.
Demographics are also changing. Wish there were more actual data. Other than the very end result which is views down over many channels all at once.
That also wouldn't have a drastic immediate effect. On the long term this is likely to eat some views of long form content.
I‘ve noticed the algorithm drizzles a good portion of smaller creators on my front page in recent months and that part is growing. I am talking about videos with just a few thousand or few hundred views that make up roughly 10-15 percent of my recommendations or so.
I think Youtube is diversifying exposure so you don‘t see the same faces you‘ve seen the past 15 years as often and new channels get a chance to grow. I am guessing Youtube doesn‘t want to be too dependent on the same huge channels anymore either.
Of course that means huge creators are calling to the pitch forks and torches because they lose revenue but why should I care? Most of them are rich anyway and don‘t necessarily produce better videos than someone with their phone in their garage workshop or a bunch of college students in their dorms. If anything it feels more like the old Youtube again.
There is a lot wrong with Youtube but I couldn‘t care less about huge channels being forced to slim down or try harder.
Noticed those as well.
Usually the side bar recommends the usual bunch or related content but then there is this totally random video of some small channel with 10 maybe <1000 views doing a let's play or some random content which is completely unrelated to the content I watching at the moment.
In the case of LTT: Not everyone can absorb the cash flow for an ULTIMATE PETABYTE MULTI-NODE STORAGE SERVER BUILD.
I honestly enjoy those as uneducated as some videos are, those infrastructure videos are really enjoyable for the amount of jank.
I'm noticing a lot more ai generated videos myself. Or at least they look like it. Its kinda slop.
I've been getting recommendations for videos with 2 to 10 views. Noticed it about three months ago.
Same. I kinda like it.
mr beast has always been shady asf, thats why hes desperate as in the type of content he puts out, eventhough he has huge a base and his shitty food company. Like he wants to make a big deal out "paying the " wrestler that got knocked out by an aggressive MMA person. hes like a vulture.
AI slop most likely. Well, to be serious, I think the drop is due to them trying to fight AI slop and miserably failing.
yes, ive seen an increase in AI slop + propaganda too, and yt also is allow ISRAEL to make pro-IDF propaganda to flood the site now. 45million$ contract from NETANYAHU.
AI slop trailers, AI bizarre animal injures, GOOGLE veo AI videos.
I hope anything but LTT, a shit clickbait channel that steals things to auction off
Nazi salutes and brotein supplements
If a change in the algorithm hurts, it may be a sign that the algorithm had been helping previously. No one questions the algorithm when viewership grows, but it’s largely to blame for the good and the bad.
True, but a platform where your income is dependent on an ever changing algorithm is not something a business can handle. Changes like that will drive away major channels and make them start to look for alternatives.
I mean you just described every website in the world, and their relationship with Google search engine traffic. Demonstrably, a business can deal with this. An algorithm can inject uncertainty into a business, but if one is entirely and exclusively dependent on one algorithm, is it really a business?
Very true. And it's very worrying that so much of global online business is literally dependent of Googles good will.
DarkviperAU also mentioned it.
youtube is probably gearing the algorithim for other content than influencers that draws in more views or revenue.
Not impossible. The best revenue for Google would be if they could ai generate all the content themselves.
I'll echo that I have felt an algorithm change. I watch a lot of leather crafting videos and a lot of Adam Savage videos. In the past week I've been getting Adam Savage working on leather videos and I've been thrilled to discover these. As someone who's been watching both Adam Savage and leather crafting videos for months or maybe years, I should have already seen these, but somehow missed these until this past week. Now YouTube shows me video after video of Adam Savage working on leather, which I love.