I’m not too tech savvy so I appreciate responses in layman’s terms.
I have a rough concept of how NewPipe works, (correct me if I’m wrong though!) basically it’s a scrapper so it somehow reads the information in YouTube, anonymously, and filters the ads for you.
What I’m interested in knowing is, how does this behaviour look like from YouTube’s perspective. Can the platform “tell” that someone is accessing their content but not the ads that should go before and inbetween the videos? Do these views requested by NewPipe count towards the global amount of views a video has? Do content creators still get money from youtube ads with NewPipe views? Do they also get to see engagement data from views (such as which parts are skipped)? Etc etc.
EDIT!
I have compled the data from today! It is in a comment ot this comment!
EDIT!
I may be able to help…
While I am definately not a youtuber, I do have a few random videos on my channel, here is a test video from when I bought my Sigma 100-400mm telezoom lens for my Lumix S5.
Give it a few views with different frontends and I’ll check the stats later this evening…
Note however that no videos I have on my channel is monetized, which might skew the data, but it us the best I can offer:
https://youtu.be/cKHi_K_AQVs?si=5tkVIyng7yjECSm4
EDIT:
I will shortly head to work, but so far the most interesting stat I have seen today is this:
Even with this limited stats you can clearly see that some of the external frontends are listed as “Other Youtube Features”
I’ll get back with more stats after work, or when I see that they have compiled, I will try and get all data I can, I may not be able to enterpret it, but I will do my best to post when I have.
Right, I am back you numbercrunching crumbnunchers!
This is what I see when I go into Youtube Studio and look at the analytics tab:
Weirdly, the viewcount is completely different in the three highlighted areas, I don’t really know what that means, but perhaps someone else can explain it?
Anyway, on to the video specific analytics:
Again, differing viewcounts, so it is probably just something I am missing… Here we see that a majority of watches comes from “Other YouTube features” and “External”.
Let’s see if we can see something more on the next pages:
Here it only shows 19 views, I wonder if that is completed views… I clearly know way too little about YouTube to get a proper conslusion so far…
But let’s keep going!
Ok, more “Other YouTube features” stats, but clicking on that give no further data, “External” however…
There we are my Lemmys! (Lemmings?)
From the links it looks like we can make a qualified guess about some of the mobile apps in use in this thread, interesting, but not that useful in this case…
The Geography tab either has not processed completely, or there is too little data to make a determination, it just shows a “Total” value, with no added data.
Same goes to the Cities tab, which makes sense…
There is not enough demographic data to graph the ages or genders of the viewers, makes sense…
The Date tab hold no interesting data.
None of all 19 viewers are subscribed to me, good, I only upload occasionally, some train videos, some minecraft/ut2004 videos, and other random crap…
On to device type!
Most of the 19 viewers, watched on a mobile phone, but I have no data about what kind, I thought the frontends might pretend to be a mobile app for the yt API, but there is not enought data to determine that.
Youtube Product tab, does not hold the key, it hold no usefull unformation in this case.
The Playback location tells me that all 19 views was done on the Youtube watch page, probably meaning directly on Youtube.
Operating Systems!
The majority of viewers watched on Android, then iOS, then one on Windows, nothing more to see here.
Noone used subtitles, and I would have been quite confused is someone had, since the video doesn’t have them…
Video info language, shows no relevant data, neither does “Translation use”, Endscreen Element type, Card Type, Card, Sharing Service, Player Type, Remixes of this Video or “New and Returning viewers”
So from what I can see, the stats that I can access doesn’t include views from other frontends, though I probably don’t have access to all stats since I don’t monetize.
Weirdly, the viewcount is completely different in the three highlighted areas, I don’t really know what that means, but perhaps someone else can explain it?
I know it’s not really important but just in case anyone’s curious. The bottom right is showing the video’s all-time views (43). The top left is showing the video’s views over the last 48 hours (34). And the main graph in the middle of the screen is usually on a delay, so is probably not counting today’s views yet hence the (19).
Very interesting to see! Thanks for compiling these.
You are very wellcome, it was an interesting question, and I am happy to help, even if I was unable to answer the big question.
Thanks for this follow up and for sharing! That was interesting
+1 newpipe view via singapore
Regular YT view from US
I have posted a follow up!
+1 Libretube, android 14, UK (VPN) originating in California
I have posted a follow up!
And adding to my previous comment, +1 on NewPipe uninterrupted and +1 from Freetube. All Australia if that’s of any use
Edit: my first watch was feom clicking your link, the second was from NewPipe history, and the third was searching directly on Freetube, no link
I have posted a follow up!
Okay! +1 NewPipe, might add that I started the vid about an hour ago, got interrupted by a phone call and only now I finished it. The views jumped from 9 to 24 by the time I returned to watch.
I’m going to give it another view without interruption now, same NewPipe
I have posted a follow up!
Invidious from France
I have posted a follow up!
+1 Regular YouTube desktop from Australia, with the tracking part of the URL removed.
I have posted a follow up!
How are views calculated? I think I remember that you need to watch X% of a video for it to register as a view, so some of the comments here may be off
I have unfortunately no idea, it would make sense to classify a view as watching a minimum of 50% of the video, but tjat is probably too easy…
+1 Newpipe frome France
I have posted a follow up!
Interesting… another user tested the views when I asked in Piped community about the same thing a while back and no views were added to his video.
Anyway, +1 view from LibreTube (Piped). Thanks for doing this!
I have posted a follow up!
one view with NewPipe
I have posted a follow up!
+1 NewPipe
I have posted a follow up!
+1 yewtu.be
I have posted a follow up!
+1 NewPipe from France
I have posted a follow up!
Vanced Canada
I have posted a follow up!
+1 YouTube Revanced, Android 13, USA
I have posted a follow up!
LibreTube from New York
I have posted a follow up!
+1 regular YouTube app mobile
I have posted a follow up!
+1 YouTube Premium view from the US
I have posted a follow up!
+1 NewPipe Germany
I have posted a follow up!
Sorry, no answer here. I just want to say that this is a really interesting question and I hope someone is able to answer.
Most larger creators say their funds come in three forms, from most payout to least: sponsorships, YT premium views, ad supported views.
A few outdoors/vanlife channels, who are an audience that’s pretty open about this sort of thing, have even gone through the stats on YT and what they make.
Bigger channels are businesses, so they do care, even if they’re teckie and likely used ad-blockers before getting in the biz.
There is definitely the concept of monetised (ie ad-viewing) vs unmonetised views, here’s a random day example from mine:
Unfortunately I can’t see a way to filter to just unmonetised views, to take a look at the traffic sources. I did have a quick look through the traffic sources in general though and can’t see any of the popular frontends listed in external, other YT, or anywhere else. So if those views are counted (which it seems like they are from the experiment in top comment) I expect they probably end up in one of the “unknown” buckets. Whether that means it really is unknown or just that YT don’t want to be drawing attention to these services by name, who knows.
As a creator, how do these things make you feel? Do you understand the users of sponserblock or …?
Ive legit always wondered if creators were always fully against adblocking, or if they understood those users and wished it was different. Idk :')Oh yeah I don’t care. My videos go up on PeerTube as well, don’t make any money there, just enjoy sharing my crafts with people really! I won’t deny the bit of extra cash is nice and it definitely helps afford stuff for new videos, which I struggled with sometimes before getting monetised. But that doesn’t take much, anything else is just a bonus.
You’d probably get a different answer from someone who’s into it like a proper business and trying to grow grow grow.
As someone who despises ads, if adblock on YouTube were to stop working tomorrow I wouldn’t use YouTube until it’s fixed. So creators I do watch aren’t missing out on ad revenue they’d otherwise get with me. If I recommend a video to a friend who doesn’t block ads, a friend who otherwise wouldn’t see it, the creator still benefited from my view. For creators I enjoy often, I support them in other ways - subbing if they stream, buying merch, etc.
Not sure you meant this to be a direct reply to my comment but fwiw I completely agree with you.
Some people are ok watching with ads because it supports creators. Some people aren’t, but choose to donate to individual creators instead. And others are either unable or unwilling to do either but the moral support of their views and comments is lovely regardless.
Nothing to add but wanted to say, good question and some good reaponses
deleted by creator
I know that creators do not get ad revenue if you use an adblocker, so I assume it works the same way for things like free tube.
Linux tech tips has talked a bit about adblocker on YouTube and so has Louis rossman. I think they can see it
Linus seriously thinks that adblocking is piracy. Dude is nothing but money, money, money, the customer be damned. So who cares what he thinks.
That’s not exactly what he said. If you go back, you’ll see that he said he doesn’t mind at all when people do it, including his own viewers. It’s just that by not watching advertisements, the viewer is purposefully not paying for the content in the platform’s intended way, just like you can torrent content to avoid paying someone like Netflix.
You might argue with the validity of the specific wording, but I don’t think it was about him getting more money, and I’m speaking as someone who does both of the things I mentioned above.
It’s 100% and categorically not like torrenting. It’s a dumb argument either way. This is like saying that if you stand up to pee during a commercial break while watching cable you’re not paying for the content and thus stealing. No one is entitled to have their ads watched, that idea is just egregious. But anyways, did you remember to drink your Monster™ verification can? Otherwise you’re stealing this comment and you owe me $5 for reading it.
ADD: Your comment reminded me of this image.
I’ve heard anecdotally that they don’t get paid when the ads are blocked. I assume there’s some kind of confirmation built into the process?
I’m curious about the specifics too though. There are lots of tech creators involved with open source, maybe they can share more?
From what I understand, creators get their payout triggered at the same time that youtube does, so in general Amy behavior not triggering YT’s revenue will almost certainly also not trigger the creator’s
Not an expert but at a certain point FreeTube introduced SponsorBlock in their code, and posted a blog post describing why it wasn’t on by default and how that choice was a good compromise toward the creators and to push for better form of monetization. A similar talk was had by NewPipe. From those link you can find all sort of details about the intended (and unintended) impact of those tools.
https://docs.freetubeapp.io/usage/sponsorblock/#disclaimer
https://newpipe.net/blog/pinned/newpipe-and-online-advertising/
From those sources it’s easy to see that those technology are indeed transparent to some form of monetization.
Technology aside, I think it’s safe to assume YouTube incentivizes creators according to engagement and retention, no matter the technology used to see them or the ads shown, since what they are ultimately rewarding is the skill of the creator in grabbing human attention. How to maximize the monetization of that is secondary.
It looks like their paycheck being reduced.
