>Starts creating and actually using custom thumbnails last week >This bollockshttps://twitter.com/TeamYouTube/status/1012160856690450432 …
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content, and then it at least feels worth while. Right now we just feel like lab rats with no recourse or option to opt out of testing that affects our livelihood.
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I guess I gleaned over something here, thats a bit more 'content creator specific' knowledge: Youtube recently switched to a model that *heavily* incentivizes clickthrough rate. That is, how often someone even clicks on your video in the first place. So suddenly, everyone,
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including myself, started putting the extra effort in to make custom thumbnails, witty (but trying to not be clickbaity) tittles. Aaaand they go and throw a wrench into that because reasons. This *is* affecting clickthrough of those users and their search ranking, and ultimately
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their income, with no option to opt out or revoke any consent (that wasnt actually given) ALL IN THE NAME OF THE ALGORITHM
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And this might be the most frustrating part. Never an official announcement, an email, a regular tweet. Always a reply. Theyre only transparent when pushed.https://twitter.com/Zueljin/status/1012338335631671296 …
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"Oh its so negligible, it only affects 0.3% of users" Alright. Lets do some math. Over the course of my rather small channel's views the last 28 days, I've had 65000 impressions and a rather low 4.8% cilckthrough rate, resulting in just under 6000 views. Lets lower that click
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through rate by about 0.3%, because users dont see an expected thumbnail style or what have you. That could be updwards of 200-300 people not watching, assuming nothing else affected. Again, not much for a small channel like mine.
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There are channels that get in a couple hours,what I get in a month. This could be literally 10s of thousands of views,and 100s of thousands of minutes of watch time just *poof* gone because people dont see their normal thumbnails. Its SUCH a big factor in click through rate now
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(Also yes that math is a bit wonky because of the way youtube displays click throughs based on impressions. ~70% of my views are not from impressions, which is *high* because im such a small channel, sharing things with you all. Bigger channels get recommended far more often)
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Anyway. TL;DR: Youtube yet again is experimenting with creators' work flows and income without so much as a notification, let alone an opt out, and wont even provide the data in the end as a token gesture to help creators, because they never do.
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Not to even mention the whole "Hey you spent that time and effort to make that thumbnail but actually we think our random one is better so we're just going to use that instead even though you already told us you wanted us to use yours"
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End of conversation
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