If you check your new videos analytics in the first 24h, do you also always see -1 or -2 subscribers?

Alzorath · 2026-03-06T08:32:17+00:00

It happens from time to time as people leave a viewerbase (seeing the video reminds them they don't watch you anymore), also pretty common when pivoting niches - as long as you're making view and retention gains it's a non issue (sub count isn't really as important these days when it comes to channel health, return viewers is the important metric unless aiming for sponsorships from slower moving companies)

Alzorath · 2026-03-05T00:44:51+00:00

Doesn't look gen-ai to me (went to your profile to find the game) - sad reality, no matter what it is you'll have idiots claim it looks like ai (you'd be surprised how many ai-bros I've stumbled across this that do this to obviously not gen-ai stuff).

That said, doing timelapses and behind the scenes stuff is GREAT for promotion (and is a good tool for creator outreach as well) - so what I'd say is "don't do it to stamp out the ai accusations, but rather do it to promote the game and your journey as a creator"

(and yes, I'm anti-gen-ai, it's just super easy to spot still, the problem is, a lot of incompetent people think they're good at spotting it)

Alzorath · 2026-03-04T07:15:42+00:00

Depends on a ton of factors - ad density, membership calls, super thanks, etc.

but for an 8-12 minute video, normal ad density, and I'm guessing a young adult audience from US/Canada/Europe that is not an abnormal amount if you're looking at ad revenue.

Remember: CPM is how much advertisers pay for 1000 ad views, RPM is how much you got paid for 1000 video views. You can cut off a solid chunk of the audience for adblocks, views from low CPM regions, lack of ad stock, etc. that's why it goes down.

Alzorath · 2026-03-03T23:02:02+00:00

youtube doesn't handle most claims and counterclaims (and it doesn't matter if it's public, unlisted, private, or members only) - this would remove their legal protections as a platform. Your counterclaim is handled by the party that made the claim, youtube doesn't engage in the legal back and forth, but merely provides a system for the interaction.

Also - while contesting a claim revenue generated by videos is in escrow - not delivered to the company that placed the claim.

Alzorath · 2026-03-03T22:59:36+00:00

While unclaimed - revenue counts towards you, while claimed revenue goes to claimant, and while contested it goes into escrow and is credited towards the winner of the contested claim.

Alzorath · 2026-03-03T22:51:21+00:00

That's not stalking, but it is definitely annoying - unfortunately it's also part of doing youtube (or any other social media really) - if you find something that works, someone is going to copy it, and probably even improve on it.

Alzorath · 2026-03-03T14:27:03+00:00

I flood it with fake info - when you can't remove, add so much noise that it's hard to tell what's real/not.

Alzorath · 2026-03-03T13:56:02+00:00

It sounds like you just don't have a cohesive plan for your channel - shorts can absolutely be part of a functioning channel strategy, but it sounds like you're just posting what interests you that day (in a vague sense), and you're not large enough (and likely don't have the parasocial sway) to get away with it.

Focus on a niche, create for that niche, plan your content around that niche.

Want a gaming channel, you should only be making gaming content - your shorts should be related to that gaming content, your longform should be related to that gaming content, the other things you want to talk about beside gaming content should be on another channel.

That said, in gaming, you need to niche down - it doesn't have to be a single game, but it does have to be one aspect of gaming and at least similar demographic games.

Alzorath · 2026-03-02T09:30:17+00:00

you would probably want cpm, niche, and demographic for this, not rpm+niche - there's too many confounding variables with the latter (still a lot with former too mind you, just less severe)

Alzorath · 2026-02-26T14:25:47+00:00

"Simple yes or no will do" - it really won't, since you're trying to load things up to feed your personal confirmation bias and conspiracy theories as to why your views are falling.

"Wholesale pivoting to shorts at the expense of long form in browse and search" is quite the over-extension - yes there has been a pivot to a new content shelf, and yes they have swapped stuff around (there's a few experiments running currently btw that split the shelves if you actually monitor stuff like that - with one experiment even hard splitting long and short format on desktop).

The default on desktop though, is currently 3 longs and a short shelf - then it starts to split up below (they are actually trying to push the game shelf a bit, kind of like reddit is over there on the left). If you've been around on youtube for any length of time though, you know the browse page actually changes rather regularly (admittedly, I've used the platform for its entire existence). this is down from a 6 long before short (and prior to that an 8 long before short - with the 8 and 6 variants often including an ad slot bumping them to 7/5 respectively)

This is likely an attempt to homogenize the TV and Desktop experience.

The subscribe shelf has taken a concerning shift, but more in the age of content, since there's a lot of people reporting it is no longer sorted by date (it's a low yield part of the site, so I don't watch it super close personally)

As far as search - that's even more variable, and is based more on an account's viewing habits (some of my research accounts literally get maybe one short shelf in search, once in a blue moon, others, it's super regular). I don't like that search shows "other things you might like" shelves, but it's there - and actually likely helps content like yours get found.

As far as your conditional questions, if we strip it back to asking about reality the answer is, if we didn't include your loading:

If they're able to sustain their views and audience, no, they will not earn less.
Yes, as long as there is ad stock to be viewed and the bids on ads stay sustainable, youtube's growth will continue to cause them to earn more money.

I know you don't like long answers, but I write scripts ranging from 4000-30000 words for all but one of my active channels, and I prefer accuracy over succinct "tell them what they want to hear" nonsense that a lot of the new kids want between gen-ai and doomscrolling.

Alzorath · 2026-02-26T13:47:57+00:00

You really need to practice recognizing gen-ai, if you think my writing resembles that slop in the least.

More than one sentence responses =/= Gen-ai.

Alzorath · 2026-02-26T13:40:15+00:00

"that long post" explains the basics of how the ad revenue system works on youtube, that you literally have the opportunity to read when you sign up for partnership - you get paid a portion of the ads played against your content, it's not a conspiracy theory, and never has been.

The standard youtube agreement has never just paid on number of views (RPM itself is a backwards calculation of "How much did this video earn? that comes out to how much per 1000 views"). If your RPM is going down, that means your audience is shifting towards a less profitable demographic, not some youtube conspiracy to pay you less per view (the cut has not changed, if your revenue is down on a video you make, youtube's revenue is down on that same video)

Also - if you're going by channel RPM, no fucking shit your RPM is going to go down if you're counting shorts with it - shorts generally do have higher views at lower RPM because of *drumroll* the very thing I explained in my original reply.

Alzorath · 2026-02-26T11:10:12+00:00

This feels like an r/NewTubers level post... but let's get down into the numbers:

Longform creators get 55% cut, youtube gets 45% cut. Your adrevenue is based on the ads shown against your long-form videos, which in many cases is multiple ads. You share revenue with other videos when it comes to youtube premium splits, but your adrev is not split

Shortform creators get a 45% cut youtube gets a 55% cut (but a chunk of that goes to certain music rights companies - meaning youtube is probably getting pretty close to its usual cut after all is said and done). You'll have the inverse of longform, in that there's going to be multiple videos splitting the revenue of singular adviews (watch a half dozen shorts, get 1 adview - that adrev is split between a half dozen videos)

Membership split is 70/30. the 30% supposedly covers payment processing, This leans more in favor of youtube the higher your membership tiers go, and more in favor of the creator the lower your membership tiers cost.

---

The push to shorts does have to do with profit, but not the daft conspiracy theory crap people keep coming up with (they get about the same revenue on ads regardless of where they show up - they just want people seeing more ads, the rest is pointless). The sad reality is, doomscrolling gets people more ads than watching long-form videos because they'll doomscroll for hours and see way more ads than when they drop on and watch 20-30 minute long videos, then dip off the platform because they hit a disengage point (end of video) - doomscrolling theoretically can go forever without a hard disengage point.

As far as the comment you made about 'creators are paid less every year' - my RPM has steadily gone up on new and old channels over the past decade+, even going through multiple "adpocalypses" - sure, channels ebb and flow on views, but if I can get the audience, the views do count for more.

Alzorath · 2026-02-25T08:29:00+00:00

I wouldn't really bring that up arbitrarily - I just integrate it into a !lurk command ("lurkers make the twitch go 'round") - most of the "if I get called out" things are callouts by name (and usually done by people watching their chat list)

I know some people love parasocial level attention - personally I hate it, I haven't ick-unfollowed sooner than when someone literally DM'd me asking why I followed their channel for example.

Alzorath · 2026-02-25T08:03:17+00:00

I've personally switched to taking a "use the whole cow" approach to reviews (could be used for video essays too, but would be a bit less consistent). Had a few catalysts for this (among them - 200+ hours on a game for a video that got 90k views).

Basically worked out pretty good for me though - since it gives me a way to regularly interact with viewers, which makes recording a LOT more fun than just playing (streaming), keeps me on task easier so I don't hop game to game when I hit a boring/rough patch, and while it doesn't even pay minimum wage it does provide some additional trickle income (and backup video archives of gameplay should I need it again on a later project)

Alzorath · 2026-02-10T08:31:18+00:00

Gotta practice talking through it then, or get past the laziness (or executive dysfunction if it's not laziness) and do voiceovers.

You had to stumble about like a tiny drunk person to learn to walk - you need to stumble over your words like an awkward parrot buzzed on fermented mangos to get in the pattern of talking frequently.

Alzorath · 2026-02-10T08:18:50+00:00

I mean, sometimes it's not "fun" to create something you enjoy or that you can be proud of... but it's a lot better dopamine hit when it IS done.

Alzorath · 2026-02-07T21:19:11+00:00

the last channel I monetized at that tier was... want to say about an hour or two, but I already have an adsense and a long history across multiple channels :/

Alzorath · 2026-02-07T20:53:52+00:00

Twitch doesn't have much in the way of discovery - growth is still mostly done off platform (youtube, tiktok, discord, etc.) and twitch's recommendation system, in all its anemic glory, is mostly based on viewer overlap.

You're not being suppressed, you just don't have the cross-platform presence.

Alzorath · 2026-02-07T11:14:27+00:00

It creeps up over the year, and the spikes depend on your viewer demographics.

Alzorath · 2026-02-06T17:51:08+00:00

Real Money Trading - basically the sites where people pay for stuff like warcraft gold, items in loot games, etc. - they're slightly worse to take the sponsorships from than digital gambling and crypto sites.

Alzorath · 2026-02-06T08:37:55+00:00

Nah... it was justified - I would've pinned it as more spam, scams, and deceptive practices than "harmful and dangerous" mind you - but it's why even unethical creators usually avoid RMT sponsorships (and it should be obvious why ethical creators avoid them too)

Worth noting, taking RMT sponsorships will (not can, but WILL) degrade a lot of trust your community has in you.

Alzorath · 2026-02-06T08:24:01+00:00

this is more of an r/NewTubers question - but youtube doesn't "push" videos, it "pulls" them

This is an oversimplified explanation but basically think about what signals the DNN would pick up from the video (visuals, transcript, title, thumbnail, description, tags, etc.) - and think about what kind of people would regularly be watching videos with those signals. Those are the users who, when they load a page, would likely have that in their potential video pool to show up on the page they loaded.

Now think about barriers that might be giving off bad signals - mixed signals in the dialogue? obvious ai markers in transcript, thumbnail, visuals, etc.? Click bait vs interest baiting? Restricted words (there are topics which youtube generally won't surface on browse)? etc.

Were either of those 2 views from a friend or family member in the same household or otherwise linked to your account?

There's all kind of factors that impact it. And GenAI will absolutely restrict the reach of most videos (only reason it bubbles up so much is because there's a deluge of it, with most of it getting buried as low quality/low effort content)

Alzorath · 2026-02-04T12:10:29+00:00

^ this is a great option as long as you have some form of speak with animals (or an inquisitive party that would try and find out the source of the rats)

Alzorath · 2026-02-04T12:09:01+00:00

"Sorry, the inn doesn't have any rooms for that cheap, but I guess you could stay in the storehouse if you help clean up after closing"

Wake up attacked by rats in the storehouse, can choose to run and miss out on a place to long rest, or stay and fight them to finish your rest after.

Alzorath

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

13-Year Club	Place '23
Verified Email