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Thomson Reuters
By Paresh Dave
ANAHEIM, Calif. (Reuters) – Videographers with millions of subscribers on YouTube have expressed frustration at a trade show last week that the service is notifying that part of their subscribers on new posts, resulting in a drop in audience and their revenue.
The gap between viewers and subscribers, which appears to subscribers on Twitter or Facebook favorites, has emerged as the latest rallying point for YouTube creators gathered at VidCon from Viacom Inc., a Annual annual gathering of the online video industry.
YouTube, which is part of Google's Alphabet Inc., suffered last year from negative feedback from creators whose advertising revenue on the service declined as a result of policy changes. But the lack of subscriber alerts affects many more creators.
"This is unacceptable," said King Russell, who runs through Kingsley and has nearly 3 million YouTube subscribers, about a live talk at VidCon. "It's sticky, rude and has to change."
His video ratings have declined to around 100,000, compared to more than a million in recent years.
These declines have created an opening for Facebook Inc., Snap Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. to attract video makers as businesses begin to share revenue with them, such as YouTube for a long time.
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YouTube executives addressed key criticisms during a session they organized at VidCon. They said that viewers are overwhelmed by too many alerts, and that users who subscribe to the channels do so to dozens while rarely unsubscribing.
The software decides, based on the viewing models, which users should receive messages indicating the new content.
"But we can do better," said Todd Beaupré, product manager at YouTube.
Viewers can click on a bell-shaped icon on the profiles of the creators to get more alerts, but YouTube has not specified what percentage of subscribers on average takes that extra step.
YouTube stars recognize that early subscribers may have lost interest, but they find the company's approach strange.
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"It's like you're subscribing to a magazine and that the postman is hiding the magazine under the package: Good luck finding it," said YouTube comedian Mike Falzone.
YouTube encouraged the subscription about six years ago when it noticed that the audience far exceeded subscribers, said Aditi Rajvanshi, who was working for the company at the time and now runs a consulting company.
"I see the challenge, and hear the frustration," she told Reuters. "YouTube has not told users what subscribers want to say today."
(Report by Paresh Dave, edited by Greg Mitchell and Lisa Shumaker)
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