"Very dramatic shift" - Linus Tech Tips opens up about the channel's declining viewership
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What I've noticed is YouTube recommending me more obscure videos, from very small creators.
I very much appreciate whatever they're doing, regardless of how these bigger channels are being hit by it. Yesterday I got recommended a video by an elderly woman, showing a mug warmer she bought. It was very sweet, had less than 30 views and it was a lovely contrast to the flashy, over edited videos stretching a paragraph to 10+ minutes.
Not saying the big channels are bad, I just personally like the small time channels and appreciate that YouTube has been (at least with the algorithm it has set for me) giving these small channels a shot at getting an audience.
I've connected with a lot of people from smaller channels, joined communities etc. yet this is much more difficult with the larger ones (in some I've been to, over the years, the chatrooms they set up are so huge the moderation sometimes just gives up or doesn't even exist in any practical way).Unfortunately, most of those so called "small channels" are actually bots using AI content farm.
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According to your source they replied and acknowledged the plagiarism 34 minutes after being notified by GN. I have no clue where you are getting 3 years.
"Plagiarism by Linus Tech Tips of GamersNexus content wherein we previously privately reached out without resolution"
They had privately contacted LTT in the past. LTT ignored it until GN made a public video years later.
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All correct, and not conflicting with what I said. For the avoidance of doubt here is the email where Billet Labs confirmed they told them they could keep it: https://imgur.com/a/mF2tz4J
Then they changed their mind, and your timeline follows.
wrote last edited by [email protected]The email says they could keep it for further testing, not sell it.
LTT claimed they offered to pay for it but the time stamps prove they didn't get an offer to pay for it until after GN publicized the mistake.
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I'm mixed on this. If the algorithm is known, big channels would just game it. They still will figure it out now and game, but it might take a bit longer. Just like these days most of timef the top 20 results with Google are completely useless nowadays because it's either AI slop or pure marketing.
This is where personalization comes in, if everybody can tune the algorithm to their liking with sufficient individuality, then algorithm gamers have a much more diffuse target. Also, if you're getting targeted by abusers you don't want to see, you can already filter that to some degree but it should be made even easier to "turn down the volume" on abusive groups. Abusive being in the opinion of the abused.
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"if"
greed is the fundamental premise of capitalism, the primary psychological mechanism exploited to perpetuate its existence.
And with transparency greed loses some of its advantage, we should be eroding those advantages any way we can...
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He generates far too much content without any depth, and it's all infotainment.
It's not particularly about him, his channel, or his content. If his channel had been declining, that's usually a downward trend. What happened instead is that LTT lost 50% of their viewers suddenly in the last month. Other YouTubers have also stated that in the last month, out of nowhere, their viewership dropped crazily, up to 60%. However, LTT analyzed that although they have half as many viewers, 'like ratio' skyrocketed and ad revenue stayed the same. Josh Strife Hayes made a video blaming YT's new feature "restricted mode" for this, which, when active, blocks a lot of videos for seemingly no reason. Some others have also noted the problem and are investigating, but a lot of information points out to something youtube did as the cause of the issue.
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The email says they could keep it for further testing, not sell it.
LTT claimed they offered to pay for it but the time stamps prove they didn't get an offer to pay for it until after GN publicized the mistake.
The email says they could keep it for further testing, not sell it.
No, the email says they said they could keep it, with no qualifiers, because they thought it would be for further testing, but didn't tell anyone that's their expectation.
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"Plagiarism by Linus Tech Tips of GamersNexus content wherein we previously privately reached out without resolution"
They had privately contacted LTT in the past. LTT ignored it until GN made a public video years later.
Well, if that happened, no such emails are in the GN response.
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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.
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Well, if that happened, no such emails are in the GN response.
The quote was from the linked article.
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The quote was from the linked article.
You: Quote
Me: The quote is not backed by any proof
You: The quote is from the article
Where else would it be from and how is that relevant?
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You: Quote
Me: The quote is not backed by any proof
You: The quote is from the article
Where else would it be from and how is that relevant?
wrote last edited by [email protected]So LTT apologized and gave GN credit only after GN made it public and that's not proof?
https://gamersnexus.net/gn-extras/our-response-linus-sebastian#linus-tech-tips-plagiarism
Read the emails. Linus said he'd fix it. GN thanked him for quick action but 3 years later LTT still hadn't done anything.
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I did too, until many of the accusations, like the Billet Labs thing, turned out to be false later.
wrote last edited by [email protected]That's unfortunate (for Linus), but Louis Rossmann's story about dealing with Linus directly pretty clearly shows him to be an unpleasant person that thinks of relationships as transactional. And it is objectively true that LMG is going for quantity over quality of videos.
As other people in this thread have stated though, it seems this problem isn't actually about Linus or LMG, it's a greater trend at YouTube.
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So LTT apologized and gave GN credit only after GN made it public and that's not proof?
https://gamersnexus.net/gn-extras/our-response-linus-sebastian#linus-tech-tips-plagiarism
Read the emails. Linus said he'd fix it. GN thanked him for quick action but 3 years later LTT still hadn't done anything.
So LTT apologized and gave GN credit only after GN made it public and that’s not proof?
Yeah, it is proof that Linus acknowledged it. Of course it was too late and he didn't do enough about it, but that was never in question.
Linus said he’d fix it. GN thanked him for quick action but 3 years later LTT still hadn’t done anything.
All I see in the email is that Linus said he will speak with the writers to not forget citations again and put up a pinned comment, which he did, and GN thanked him for it. I don't see GN requesting any other action in the email. That's definitely not "hadn't done anything". It's not enough, but again that was never in question.
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That's unfortunate (for Linus), but Louis Rossmann's story about dealing with Linus directly pretty clearly shows him to be an unpleasant person that thinks of relationships as transactional. And it is objectively true that LMG is going for quantity over quality of videos.
As other people in this thread have stated though, it seems this problem isn't actually about Linus or LMG, it's a greater trend at YouTube.
wrote last edited by [email protected]That's fair, but you also have to consider Louis is a friend of Gamer's Nexus who had a lot of conflict with LTT, and so isn't an objective party. That doesn't mean what he is saying isn't true, but I would much rather listen to the opinion of a third party.
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It's not particularly about him, his channel, or his content. If his channel had been declining, that's usually a downward trend. What happened instead is that LTT lost 50% of their viewers suddenly in the last month. Other YouTubers have also stated that in the last month, out of nowhere, their viewership dropped crazily, up to 60%. However, LTT analyzed that although they have half as many viewers, 'like ratio' skyrocketed and ad revenue stayed the same. Josh Strife Hayes made a video blaming YT's new feature "restricted mode" for this, which, when active, blocks a lot of videos for seemingly no reason. Some others have also noted the problem and are investigating, but a lot of information points out to something youtube did as the cause of the issue.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Can't prove anything, but I have always had trust issues with Youtube's numbers. Youtube is a for profit company with horrible owners at the top, and would they distort the numbers for political or financial reasons? I think they would.
I think Youtube and Reddit inflate and deflate vote counts and view counts when something is important to the owners.
Granted that is what I think. Can't prove it. But Google, Alphabet, Youtube, and the new entrants like Grumble, they are black box for profit companies. Can they pass an independent audit for their view and subscriber counts? We should not trust anything from these bad actors. Certainly don't assume good faith. Audit them by five (more than one) independent and transparent auditing companies to prove their numbers are legit. Every six months. Every year. Forever. Until then I take all those view and subscriber numbers with a fistful of salt.
Linus from LTT was ostensibly really popular. I never watched it. Lets say their old numbers were legit. Is it possible some nephew of Youtube's CEO is starting a competing channel and Youtube fudges the numbers to help push the nepo channel ahead? To me, yes, it is possible. I have very little trust for those black boxes. "Trust me bro" is all they got so far, and I have little reason to trust these entities.
So basically Google/Alphabet/Youtube reports a new number to Linus. Are the old and the new numbers legit? Can we ascertain it beyond the Youtube's "trust me bro" nonsense? We need to start there, and don't jump to conclusions about the viewership habits.
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A lot of Youtube channels are reporting declining viewership lately.
EX1: https://youtube.com/watch?v=cpVnx4_yqTo
EX2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF0tmhEtVJEFun times. Looks like a lot of channels are seeing a decline not just Linus. Hes just the latest to talk about it.
Then I saw this article as well and thought I would share.
Anyone here youtube creators? Are you seeing the same thing, a general downturn in viewership?
Had a discussion with another creator buddy and they said it appeared that there was a load less scraping going on which inflated their viewer figures for months. I wonder if youtube is finally stopping their whole content being scraped perpetually?
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So LTT apologized and gave GN credit only after GN made it public and that’s not proof?
Yeah, it is proof that Linus acknowledged it. Of course it was too late and he didn't do enough about it, but that was never in question.
Linus said he’d fix it. GN thanked him for quick action but 3 years later LTT still hadn’t done anything.
All I see in the email is that Linus said he will speak with the writers to not forget citations again and put up a pinned comment, which he did, and GN thanked him for it. I don't see GN requesting any other action in the email. That's definitely not "hadn't done anything". It's not enough, but again that was never in question.
Yeah, it is proof that Linus acknowledged it
The receipts show LTT plagerized, Linus promised to fix it but didn't. Steve thanked him expecting that Linus would do what he promised but then Linus did nothing.
3 years later after GN publicized the unethical behavior, Linus then, and only then fixed it.
the writers to not forget citations again and put up a pinned comment, which he did,
But he didn't. He promised to but never did until 3 years later. That's why Steve called him out.
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Yeah, it is proof that Linus acknowledged it
The receipts show LTT plagerized, Linus promised to fix it but didn't. Steve thanked him expecting that Linus would do what he promised but then Linus did nothing.
3 years later after GN publicized the unethical behavior, Linus then, and only then fixed it.
the writers to not forget citations again and put up a pinned comment, which he did,
But he didn't. He promised to but never did until 3 years later. That's why Steve called him out.
wrote last edited by [email protected]3 years later
- The WAN show with the plagiarized segment aired on September 16, 2022
- GN wrote to LTT about the plagiarism on September 21, 2022
- The email reply and pinned comment was published on September 21, 2022, less than an hour later
Please give me some dates because I really can't see where the 3 years are coming from. 3 years haven't even passed yet from when the plagiarism happened
The receipts show LTT plagerized, Linus promised to fix it but didn’t.
So he did acknowledge it. Which, may I remind you again, is all I'm saying, in response your comment that he didn't acknowledge it. I'm not saying he fixed the issue, all I'm saying is that he said he will, which you seem to agree with, so I really don't know what you are disagreeing with me about.
Your original comment is:
For example he copied a gamersnexus script and never acknowledged it
Which I disagree with, because in my opinion it should be:
For example he copied a gamersnexus script, and didn't properly fix the issue even though he acknowleged it and said he will
I don't know why you are saying he fixed it 3 years later when the WAN Clips segment still doesn't even have a pinned comment. He did not fix it then, he did not fix it until now, and I bet it won't be fixed 3 years later, which will pass next week.
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I'm not quite sure I understood what you were talking about, but they specifically showed their revenues from YouTube AdSense for the past year or so, and they showed exactly how much they gained from each video, and it shows basically a straight line, whilst the same graph for viewers shows a substantial decrease. I'm not sure if that was specifically for LTT or for all of their channels, but I'm assuming it was just for LTT. That has no relation to them then splitting their revenues to their different channels.
What I'm saying is if YouTube is sharing $10 million of revenue with channel owners in a month that has 1,000,000,000 total views across YouTube, that's a penny per view.
Then, if the next month the reconfigure the view counts to exclude certain bots or views under a particular number, you might see the overall view count drop from 1,000,000,000 to 500,000,000, while still hitting the same overall revenue. At that point, it's $0.02 per view, so a channel that sees their view count drop in half may still see the same revenue despite the drop in view count.
If it's a methodology change across all of YouTube, a channel that stays equally popular as a percentage of all views will see the revenue stay the same, even if the view counts drop (because every other channel is seeing their view counts drop, too).
