Well it’s not like youtube couldn’t technically track the views even with adblockers if they wanted. The video is still being streamed after all, you don’t need the client to call another endpoint to know whether it’s streaming the video.

If you claim your counting views while simultaneoudly andvwithout disclosure don't count views of people using an adbkocker even so you could then thagvis deceiving. If it was the case I second waht the above poster hinted at: seems like a strategy to manipulate public discourse by using influencers frustration over where it hurts them (their purse) enhanced by the haunting sensation of loosing control (since they cannot know how and if they are negatively impacted by what - which makes the desire to find the cause of effect/guilty oarty/or a scapegoat) in order to disincentivice adblockers. If the articles assumptions are correct, and it is beyond googles engineering teams to fix that issue (which seems unreasonabke to assume) theb that would be a pretty (and petty) malign and antisocial policy to pursue. (Don't be evil once was a thing for good reason)

Why are we not counting financial reasons? Yeah, it’s a number both creators and advertisers looking to strike a direct advertising/sponsorship deal can use as an easy point of reference, which cannot readily be modified by the creator.

But to your point, the site is borderline social media nowadays when you consider all the features.

Bragging rights for sure. Many channels are parasocial relationships, and that number matters a lot to both the creator and the viewers.

It’s also mildly informational. If I see a completely out-of-whack suggestion in my feed, but it has a billion views, suddenly I know why it’s in my feed.

There are probably other reasons. I remember there was ongoing reporting about a race between two channels on YouTube racing to have… I dunno, the first video with a billion views or something. The number of video views for Gangnam Style was something everyone was talking about.

Plus, it’s nice to have. That’s reason enough imo.

Videos are often monetized via sponsor placements in the videos themselves. The creator of the video would like an accurate view count to report to their sponsors.

This is completely separate from the YouTube platform ads and monetization which is what the ad blockers are blocking.

It's for sponsors too so yes a total view count is important since creators use views to negotiate deals. I have adblock[0], but I still watch sponsor spots.

0: I just side step this entirely these days by paying for premium.

This is a bit too blunt a look at it. YouTube exists as an ecosystem with increasing competition. View and subscriber counts are their core incentive and feedback systems they have with the actual producers that make their whole ecosystem work. Without those there's no real reason for people to put videos there.

This as an open and celebrated system drives producers to advertise for YouTube via the almost-compulsory every-video mention of liking and subscribing and forwarding videos to friends.

Youtube is well aware of this, hence things like the iconic long running physical play button trophy delivery system.

I'd also say more broadly that making such sweeping claims for YouTube as a collective entity not caring at all about viewers is too reductive. It's more defensible and relatable to claim that, though there may be many people working for YouTube because they deeply care about a mission of democratizing multimedia publishing, the incentives and structures around it being a PBC often lead to decisions which drown out that care from corporate heads who are more profit than mission driven.

>You, a viewer, are nearly irrelevant to YouTube. You exist purely as a revenue source

How are these two statements not contradictions?

If I understand well, my view is not counted as a YouTube Premium subscriber. I’m not sure that anybody is happy with that. Also there is zero good reason to have a separate API for this. Even Google knows this, because Google Analytics has an adblocker proof solution for at least a decade.

Why are view counts displayed prominently in the UI then? Every suggested video shows it's view count as a sort of social proof.

> View counts are for monetization

Agree, however view counts, i.e. metrics tracked by YT, or by sponsors,creators in fancy dashboards isn't the view counter we are shown and nobody is questioning how those are implemented. The View Counter means very specific UI component in YT interface shown to regular users.

> view counter isn't for you

Disagree,

View counter is a important decision making input along with the thumbnail, title and duration of the video on if a user will click on the video to watch them.

It is in effect an advertisement for the video.

If that wasn't the case, then YouTube wouldn't be showing them in every list view and next to every thumbnail. When the numbers no longer represent what the users think they represent I would say it is not far from false advertising.

A fair amount of people on here and I have both YT Premium and also use some adblocker, should our views be counted or not according to this point of view? .

> That's emphatically not what people "people want". People want to get paid. And creators get paid based on views.

That's nonsense, as a viewer of YouTube videos I do not expect to her paid for this.

I guess it'd be nice if I were paid for watching YouTube, so maybe you have a point after all! :-)

> Why would anyone just watching videos on YouTube care how many people have seen the video?

For the same reason online shops show "Most popular" items and ads say "trusted by X people worldwide". People on average apparently like feeling being part of a bigger crowd. If that doesn't make sense to you, you're probably in the minority (which by that logic shouldn't bother you).

Number of views and views to likes ratio are both signals of value.

It's social proof, specially before you start watching. And after watching it's still interesting in a "huh this trailer got 5M views, didn't know so many people were interested in it" way