YouTube Is Going To Get Rid Of Live Subscriber Counts

YouTube has said from August it will be no longer be showing exactly how many subscribers a channel has, by ditching live subscriber counters.

In a blog post, the company has said that only YouTube creators will have access to the precise number, while visitors to the channel will only see an abbreviated subscriber count.

PA

A statement from the firm reads: "To create more consistency everywhere that we publicly display subscriber counts, starting in August 2019, we'll begin showing the abbreviated subscriber number across all public YouTube surfaces."

As well as having a standardised abbreviated display on its own site, YouTube will also be making it so that third-party firms, such as Social Blade, will also only be able to show abbreviated figures and won't be able to host live-subscriber counters.

Only the channel's creator will be able to see the specific numbers.

The company also shared some examples of how it will work in real-life, posting: "If a channel has 4,227 subscribers, the public subscriber count will read '4.2k' until the channel reaches 4,300.

"If a channel has 133,017 subscribers, the public subscriber count will read '133K' until the channel reaches 134,000.

If a channel has 51,389,232, the public subscriber count will read '51M' until the channel reaches 52,000,000."

The new rules will only apply to channels with more than 1,000 subscribers - so if you've got 982 subscribers it won't round down 900, but as soon as it hits over 1,000 it'll begin to show the abbreviated numbers.

YouTube/James Charles

The new rules were announced amidst a bunch of high-profile YouTuber campaigns and spats.

Firstly, we had the months-long Subscribe to PewDiePie campaign which aimed to keep the popular YouTuber top as he faced tough competition from T Series. Live subscriber counts were used by fans to see how the battle was going.

And, of course more recently we've also had the whole James Charles and Tati Westbrook beef - which saw Charles lose a record-number of subscribers in just a few days, before gaining a bunch back. Fans were able to use Social Blades' live subscriber count to see how well... or badly, Charles was getting on.

Topics: Technology, YouTube

Claire Reid

Claire is a journalist at LADbible who, after dossing around for a few years, went to Liverpool John Moores University. She graduated with a degree in Journalism and a whole load of debt. When not writing words in exchange for money she is usually at home watching serial killer documentaries surrounded by cats. You can contact Claire at [email protected]

@ClaireReid19