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Recently, a wave has been going through the YouTube creator cosmos. Bigger channels have been noticing and talking about a drop in their views, and no one knows why it happened.
Everyone is sure of one thing, though: it isn’t a simple ‘algorithm change’.
Many creators have spoken up, and a plethora of theories and conclusions have emerged regarding the constant drop in viewership since the end of August. We’re talking about channels that regularly hit 1.2M-1.5M views, now barely scratching 800K views on recent uploads.
YouTube’s Restricted Mode has been around for some 10+ years now, and never played a significant role for content creators or at least it didn’t have a measurable effect on views. Restricted Mode is also not relevant for the average viewer, as, quoting the YouTube Help, “A small subset of users, such as libraries, schools, and public institutions, who choose to have a more limited viewing experience on YouTube use Restricted Mode.”
So the average user probably doesn’t even know it exists, which makes the current news of YouTube using AI to assess their users’ age and potentially turning on restricted mode automatically, should they identify a minor, all the more interesting.
We picked out some channels our team watches frequently, as well as channels from our exclusives, and found at least some correlation. For most of the channels we checked, we found that videos with lower-than-usual performance were also hidden as soon as we turned on restricted mode.
However, this seemed to affect mostly bigger channels with around 1M views on average. Smaller and mid-sized channels on our roster didn’t report any unusual drops in viewership, although some of their videos were also hidden in Restricted Mode.
During our research on restricted mode and its potential impact on our talents, we noticed that the criteria for restricting a video are somewhat subjective.
Videos that show potentially adult content won't be shown to viewers who have Restricted Mode turned on.
To test the reach of Restricted Mode, we checked Super Eyepatch Wolf (SEW) after hearing his comments on his secondary channel. We wanted to see the effect firsthand.
For some context, we found this channel particularly interesting because, despite having a strong community and a large following, his views tend to fluctuate regularly, even before the significant drop in viewership observed by other channels since August.
We decided to turn on Restricted Mode, and what we saw was astonishing to say the least.
From the 126 videos he has made since starting his channel, only 16 were visible with Restricted Mode turned on. The most recent video visible in Restricted Mode, from 9 months ago.
Part of this might be justified since SEW covers horror movies and games, which fit under ‘violence’ and ‘mature subjects’. However, upon comparison, we questioned why a video on Cody Rhodes' history is hidden while his essay on Social Anxiety Horror remains visible.
While SEW states that he and his channel are doing fine, having almost 90% of your content hidden on Restricted Mode likely has an impact.
While YouTube mostly remained silent on the issue and didn’t engage directly with any of the theories posted by creators, they were quick to clarify that Restricted Mode would always be off by default.
So, while there appears to be a correlation between Restricted Mode and low views, we can’t say for certain that this is responsible for the lion's share of the missing views.
YouTube has announced a new feature called ‘Hype,’ which allows viewers to promote videos, increasing their visibility by listing them on a country-specific leaderboard and highlighting them on YouTube with a special ‘Hyped’ badge.
This feature is available for channels in the YouTube Partner Program with 500 to 500,000 subscribers. Hype rewards up-and-coming creators with strong communities, as it gives their viewers an opportunity to directly support the channel by increasing its visibility.
Additionally, since 500 to 500,000 subscribers is a wide range, hype gives smaller creators a bigger boost. The fewer the subscribers, the bigger the bonus. This led some content creators to believe that, with this new feature and the increased bonus for smaller creators, there might have been a shift in views.
However, ‘Hype’ is still gradually being rolled out to more viewers, and leaderboards only display data for the region you're in (the leaderboard in Germany looks different from the one in the U.S.). We also haven’t seen a significant spike in views on hyped videos compared to other videos from creators on the Hype leaderboards, making a connection to the drops in views of larger creators very unlikely.
The most plausible theory surrounding the drop in views so far is that it’s connected to viewers using an ad blocker. Many creators noticed that the drop in views on their videos was connected to a shift in their Views by Device type ratio.
Before August, ‘computer’ led the views statistic for many long-form content creators, but as soon as the first drops in views were reported on August 11, many creators also showed a dip in computer views, now only making it to second or even third place after mobile and TV.
Josh Strife Hayes made an excellent video breaking down his findings and conclusions from his own viewership metrics as well as comparing them to data from other content creators.
Around the same time in August, YouTube and Google implemented stronger measures against ad blockers. On August 11 precisely, YouTube bricked its website for anyone using the Adblock Plus Chrome extension. Additionally, users with an ad blocker now experience longer loading times. There’s been a "three-strikes" policy in the past and, for some users, YouTube appears to block them entirely from watching videos if an ad blocker is detected.
Considering these points, it’s likely that most of the drop in views is due to browsers with ad blockers not being counted by YouTube. Channels like Josh Strife Hayes and Linus Tech Tips reported unaffected ad revenue, while others noted that, despite lower views, their engagement rate (likes and comments per view) remained the same or improved.
To better navigate these changes, creators should focus on monitoring key metrics such as engagement rate and the breakdown of views by device type. Keeping a close eye on these analytics can help creators understand shifts in their audience's behavior and adapt their strategies accordingly.
First, as long as we don’t have widespread data or a statement from YouTube, we can only speculate about what’s behind this drop in viewership. However, examining different creator perspectives, reviewing shared data, and making informed assumptions can help regain control and awareness over what often feels like the whims of the algorithm.
If you are a creator who is directly affected by this and fear missing out on sponsorship deals or losing significant ad revenue due to the drop in viewership, the data suggest that you can rest easy.
As stated above, the drop doesn’t seem to significantly affect ad revenue. And for sponsorship deals, a strong engagement rate and active community are often more relevant than just the views.
The key takeaway: prioritizing community is essential! An engaged, loyal audience is a creator’s greatest asset during uncertain times.
We experienced something similar, but more extreme, when it was still uncertain whether TikTok would stay online. Creators with strong communities decided to diversify and carried their communities over to other platforms. They may have lost a few along the way, but they were able to keep their channel alive and well because of the dedicated community they had built beforehand.
