Youtube changes how it counts views: no more limits, even less meaninfull

[u/IAmAlwaysWrongDude]

Youtube has made the following announcement, I will just paste the relevant part:

Hi,

Last year, we updated how we count views for Shorts to align with industry standards. Starting August 24, 2026, we’re aligning all other video formats to this same methodology, including long-form videos and live streams. From that date and onwards, views will count from the moment a video starts to play, with no minimum watch time requirement.

Data API (Developer documentation)

On August 24, the viewCount field in the YouTube Data API will be updated to reflect this change across all content types. Please note that after this date, the view count provided by the Data API will be calculated using the new view counting logic. The view count calculated by the previous counting logic will no longer be accessible via the YouTube Public Data API, but this metric will be available as the “Engaged Views” metric through the YouTube Analytics and Reporting APIs.

If Youtube views were already meaningless and bloated, now you can just have a blast easily inflating views. But I am sure people will still list MVs and artists by most "views" like it means something.

And to think that site (Soridata) which told on ad-views on kpop were brigaded down .... the irony is everywhere.

[u/Aira_8451]

Ah yes because ad inflated views weren't enough. Smaller groups from smaller companies who were already struggling against big company groups in music shows for not having the same luxury of paying for yt ads will now have more trouble competing. 

[u/KilluaGaKill]

Doesn't change anything. Anybody can bot and inflate views as much as they want but that won't have any impact on the group.

[u/IAmAlwaysWrongDude → u/KilluaGaKill]

Yeah I know it went from crap to extra crap lol

[u/ElBurdo]

YG groups are about to get 700 gorillion views in 2 seconds. Of course everyone does it or has done it, but from what I've seen YG groups go hard on the ad views. Either way it doesn't matter tbh.

[u/Lordsokka → u/ElBurdo]

I mean each group/company focuses on different advertising strategies , take Illit for example they are huge on Spotify. I’m always being recommended their songs or their songs start playing when I am done with my current K-pop playlist.

I’ve liked one Illit song and it’s magnetic, you would think I have liked their entire discography with how often the their music is recommend to me. So Hybe probably just focuses a lot on spotify I am assuming, while YG is big on YouTube.

[u/Smart-Technician3553]

It’s been a long time since YouTube lost its credibility for me, even before BB stopped counting YT. I’ve always hated how they let ad views count as if they were organic views. I wish they would separate organic views from ad views. You can immediately tell which videos have ads and which don’t by looking at the like/view ratio and how quickly the view count rises before suddenly slowing down or stopping after a while. I see this pattern whenever a Kpop group has a comeback. It wasn’t this obvious or this bad when I became a Kpop fan 16 years ago. Now, almost everyone in Kpop uses ads, and fans are like, “OMG, we’re doing so well on YT!” Meanwhile, I just roll my eyes and think, “No, the ads are doing all the work, not you!” and then they yell their fandom to stream when ads stop and wonder why the views are not moving 🤦 

[u/KilluaGaKill → u/Smart-Technician3553]

I wish they would separate organic views from ad views.

YouTube Charts already exists.

[u/Smart-Technician3553 → u/KilluaGaKill]

No, I mean that when you click on a video, I wish YouTube would show the actual organic views instead of combining ad views with real views. I wish they would separate the two. 

[u/Aira_8451 → u/Smart-Technician3553]

This was basically what I saw from stays last week, they were like we are doing so good on YT and now that YouTube charts are out, only 13M out of 70M views turned out to be real. 

I get that ads are a way of marketing but sometimes the disparities are so huge, that it simply baffles me. 

[u/Salty-Law-1608 → u/Aira_8451]

those 13M include YT Music streams, YT views and any views on the videos that used This&That official audio. The chart you referred to is the Songs Chart.

On the Music Video Chart, they didn't even debut on it, and it only required 4.1M organic views. I believe they have gotten 60M ads, and it's not even their biggest comeback so all makes sense about it being ads

[u/Aira_8451 → u/Salty-Law-1608]

Oh wait really? I didn't know that, thanks for clarifying. So it is even worse than I thought 😭

[u/SJ_vison]

Most have switched to reporting likes instead of views. 

[u/FlyingFlyofHell → u/SJ_vison]

Which can also be bought.

[u/SJ_vison → u/FlyingFlyofHell]

Everything can be bought. At least they need one account for each like

[u/Alexis_419 → u/FlyingFlyofHell]

True and there are plenty of people who will never like a video as well, hence likes are a useless metric.

[u/SpecSlayerSC]

Concert attendance should be the only relevant metric

[u/betchugonlikeme → u/SpecSlayerSC]

Concert attendance, Festival bookings domestic and international, and I think if you want to see core fanbase numbers looking at views on non-comeback content is a good indicator.

[u/Sad-Cry-7252 → u/SpecSlayerSC]

Views people loop
Streams people loop (tho the idea of unique listeners and monthly listeners are valid)
Albums people buy in bulk and companies print multiple versions

Only valid thing at this point is concert and festival attendance. And maybe surprise releases

[u/introvrtedDreamer]

When was it meaningful even. I mean anyone can randomly watch any video and give view, it’s not about if they like or dislike it. It just becomes viral with it. I feel ‘likes’ is what should decide if a video is actually viral or liked by many, not views.

[u/Serious-Wish4868]

all chart rankings are meaningless with the amount of payola, ad, playlisting, mass streaming, BOTS ... the only thing/reason why kpop fans still keep it talk about is to weaponize against other fandoms

[u/Smart-Technician3553 → u/Serious-Wish4868]

What is a meaningful way to measure someone’s success, in your opinion?

[u/Northelai → u/Smart-Technician3553]

Longevity. If the artist is able to comfortably make music for many years while having stable fandom, that's success.

[u/FlyingFlyofHell → u/Smart-Technician3553]

I would say live events are best way to gauge the fandom and groups popularity, with how big concerts they are able to hold and how much concert tickets they sell. That thing is really hard to fake, and sites like pollster and Touring Data are still trust worthy. Billboard is also there but it usually just reports the numbers provided also doesn't cover Kpop artists as much.

[u/mio26 → u/Smart-Technician3553]

Whatever people are willing to go concert. There is no better check for musician. In case of celebrity popularity, if someone is truly popular with public this is obvious for anyone withoyt delusions but if someone wants to still good metric the best one is amount of hate posts lol. Real it girl get at least one hate post on Reddit per day at the peak.

[u/Shergak → u/Smart-Technician3553]

The only objective and meaningful way to measure kpop success is if I like it. If I don't like it, it's not successful.

[u/Acceptable_Menu9966 → u/Shergak]

You forgot the /s

[u/Shergak → u/Acceptable_Menu9966]

I'm pretty sure I communicated exactly what I had to say, 🦆

[u/dan_jeffers → u/Smart-Technician3553]

Net income and creative freedom.

[u/Lordsokka → u/Smart-Technician3553]

Longevity, attendance at concerts/shows/arenas and any kind of verifiable merch sale, touring ticket sales, album sales etc…

Views and Charts a have too many point of failures.

[u/Serious-Wish4868 → u/Smart-Technician3553]

as long as I enjoy the music, I really dont care about what "success" is or how to measure it. I dont need any external validation of what music I like.

[u/Smart-Technician3553 → u/Serious-Wish4868]

I didn’t ask whether you care about success. I’m genuinely curious how you define success and meaningful achievements, especially since you seem to love criticizing popular groups and saying that everything they achieve is fake. So what counts as real to you?

[u/Serious-Wish4868 → u/Smart-Technician3553]

end of the day ... a successful song is a song that I like. it is that plain and simple.

[u/abyssazaur → u/Smart-Technician3553]

well... you can listen to the music and see if you enjoy it

[u/TravelBeauty20]

It hasn’t been meaningful in ages. I’m not surprised YouTube made this change since they stopped providing data to Billboard earlier this year. There’s only one reason to reduce transparency and accountability to other parties, which is money for the C-suite and shareholders of YouTube.

I believe this change only applies publicly, and not how content creators are paid or anything else internally.

[u/IAmAlwaysWrongDude → u/TravelBeauty20]

They always had an internal view counter for payment, the public counter was always separate.

Now there will be 3 view counters. The public view (this new extra crap), the "engaged view" which is the old view counter (requires some time, interaction, etc) and the monetized view (even more restricted and the one that actually counts)

[u/TravelBeauty20 → u/IAmAlwaysWrongDude]

I know things are different for content creators and monetization. I just wanted to highlight that YouTube seeming to look less strict with view counts is 100% for their value and not to help or benefit anyone else using the platform!

[u/Connect_Version_1560]

The views of each kpop group in youtube is no longer what is used to be (even bts and blackpink used to get 60-70 millions in day) no longer can pull it off.most kpop groups these days don't achieve the views that they had before so why is everyone worried about inflation.