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John was Wrong about YouTube Views

2026-09-18 · letter vlog · Hank · 10:26 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Internet & YouTube · mode: News analysis · tags: timely hook, self promotion

Hank corrects John's video on YouTube views: the likes-times-30 trick means dollars per thousand likes, and YouTube's real change is counting autoplay on scroll and hover as views, as TikTok, Instagram and Facebook long have; he calls it manipulative but understandable, and says the channel's viewers are people, not views.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Correction one: John's likes-times-30 revenue trick, and why ad rates differ between channels

  • ★★ Hank says that applying John's multiply-likes-by-30 rule to that video's 23,000 likes gives $690,000, which is not what the video made. — 00:00:00 · John Green, YouTube
  • ★★ Hank says John meant the two digits before the K: that gives $690, quite close to what the video has made so far, so for them the trick perhaps still mostly works. (hedged) — 00:00:29 · Vlogbrothers
  • ★★ Hank warns not to apply the trick to other YouTube channels: many factors, from where the audience lives to video length, affect ad rates. — 00:00:29 · online advertising, YouTube
  • ★ Hank discloses that Rene Ritchie, YouTube's creator liaison, is his friend, and that he knows Todd, then the YouTube Shorts lead and now at Instagram, a little. — 00:00:29 · YouTube, Instagram

00:00:58 — A YouTube clip from about three years ago: what counts as a view in Shorts

  • ★★ Todd (quoted): In a YouTube clip from about three years ago, Todd says flipping past Shorts does not count as views; some platforms count impressions, but YouTube wants a view to encode intent to watch. — 00:00:58 · YouTube
  • ★★ Hank sums up YouTube's framework then: a view should be what you think of when you hear the word, though not all platforms have done this. — 00:01:27 · YouTube
  • ★★ Hank says that as early as 2015 he wrote a widely circulated post, which made him enemies, about how Facebook was counting views. — 00:01:27 · Facebook

00:02:01 — View inflation since Facebook in 2015: Goodhart's Law, TikTok, brands chasing big numbers, creator pay

  • ★★ Hank says Facebook counted views far faster than YouTube, making posters think they got more views, so companies went all in on Facebook, which with other things led to bad outcomes. — 00:02:01 · Facebook, YouTube
  • ★★★ Hank says the view has kept degrading as a metric, largely a Goodhart's Law problem: a measure that becomes a target becomes a bad measure. — 00:02:01
  • ★★ Hank says the law bites both creators chasing TikTok views that cannot build a sustainable audience and platforms that push the number up because creators and brands measure by it. — 00:02:30 · TikTok
  • ★★ Hank says TikTok drove view inflation: short content means more views per minute, and scrolling until you find a video to watch might count five or 10 views. (hedged) — 00:02:59 · TikTok
  • ★★ Hank says early creators are paid in views: 50 or 100,000 TikTok views feel like the YouTube numbers they grew up with, though they are different views. — 00:03:28 · TikTok, YouTube
  • ★★ Hank thinks many TikTokers would be well served coming to YouTube, but feel their views there are much lower. — 00:03:28 · TikTok, YouTube
  • ★★ Hank says a YouTube view was worth at least 10 TikTok views, and YouTube numbers had to be multiplied by five for the difference in views, or used to be. — 00:03:58 · YouTube, TikTok
  • ★★ Hank says brands also just look at view numbers: agencies and brand staff report the biggest number they can, though everyone knows engaged views, likes or sales matter more. — 00:03:58
  • ★★ Hank says he has seen himself paid far more for a TikTok or Instagram video than he feels he delivers in value, and far less on YouTube. — 00:04:27 · TikTok, Instagram, YouTube

00:04:56 — The real correction: YouTube now counts autoplay on scroll and hover as views; manipulative, but announced

  • ★★ Hank attributes the gap to inflated view numbers on TikTok and Instagram, which YouTube's are not, or were not. — 00:04:56 · TikTok, Instagram, YouTube
  • ★★★ Hank corrects John: YouTube's switch to counting a view at the first frame happened a while ago, unannounced; it has moved the after-click threshold many times. — 00:04:56 · John Green, YouTube
  • ★★★ Hank says the real change is that a video autoplaying as you scroll on a phone, or on mouse-over on youtube.com, now counts as a view, which is why counts inflated so much. — 00:05:25 · YouTube
  • ★★ Hank says YouTube now counts views the way Instagram, TikTok and Facebook always have: any information from the video rather than text and thumbnail. — 00:05:25 · YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook
  • ★★★ Hank says this is not what anyone means by a view, and he finds it inaccurate and manipulative, both to creators and to brands. — 00:05:55 · YouTube
  • ★★ Hank credits YouTube for announcing it: hover autoplay from a thumbnail is a view from the first frame; playing on some seconds, or any click, makes an engaged view. — 00:06:18 · YouTube

00:06:48 — Hank's ambivalence: a little place grown important, his meat brain, YouTube's competitive bind, creators paid more

  • ★★ Hank says the fun little place where they did stupid little things in 2008 has become so important; he has been part of that and is ambivalent about it. — 00:06:48 · YouTube
  • ★★ Hank admits big numbers still work on his meat brain, even on his own YouTube videos whose engaged views he knows. (playful) — 00:07:17 · TikTok, YouTube
  • ★★ Hank understands YouTube's move: competitors inflate counts and benefit while no one cares, so YouTube was suffering for no reason and changed. (hedged) — 00:07:46 · YouTube
  • ★★ Hank thinks many creators will get paid more for the same number of views, and he is kind of happy about that. (hedged) — 00:07:46
  • ★★★ Hank says creators should be paid more; it is insane that they have been paid similar amounts for a TikTok view and a YouTube view. — 00:07:46 · TikTok, YouTube

00:08:15 — Viewers are people, not views; Vlogbrothers makes things with people; YouTube is just a website; Hollywood, Ending out and on tour

  • ★★★ Hank says that for this channel views and watch time never mattered: the people who come back twice a week are not views but people, in community with others. — 00:08:15 · Vlogbrothers
  • ★★★ Hank says it sucks that creators get stuck imagining their impact as one very compressed, basically useless number. — 00:08:15
  • ★★★ Hank says views may suit brand deals, but Vlogbrothers does none: they make things with people, such as artists' Pizzamas shirts whose money goes to Partners In Health. — 00:08:15 · Vlogbrothers, Pizzamas, Partners In Health
  • ★★★ Hank says they still imagine a different era of YouTube, but it is a useful fiction, and not a fiction if real and wonderful things get made. — 00:09:04 · YouTube

  • ★★★ Hank tells John and every creator listening that they don't have to be where YouTube is: it is just a website they can use as they want. — 00:09:04 · YouTube, John Green

    “We don't have to be where YouTube is. It's just a website.”

  • ★★ Hank says this is the last Vlogbrothers video before Hollywood, Ending is out, and he is pleased but unsurprised by its tremendous reviews. — 00:09:04 · Hollywood, Ending, Vlogbrothers, John Green

  • ★★ Hank says John is off on tour; many dates are sold out, but tickets remain for Brooklyn, Birmingham, Portland (Maine), Gainesville, Nashville, Madison, St. Paul, Tucson, Boise, San Diego and Los Angeles. — 00:09:04 · Hollywood, Ending, Los Angeles

00:09:51 — Remaining tour cities, the Something Worth Knowing fundraiser and how we hope; sign-off

In the description and comments

  • ★ In a comment reply, Hank says marketing departments definitely care about conversion rates, but also care about absolutely fake big numbers. — creator comment
  • ★ In a comment reply, Hank says repeat views by one user usually count as multiple views if not in the same session. — creator comment · YouTube

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Goodhart's law · TikTok · YouTube

Also: People: Rene Ritchie · Todd

Projects: Complexly · Pizzamas · Something Worth Knowing

Works: Hard Fork · Hollywood, Ending

Organizations: Facebook · Instagram · Partners In Health

Concepts: creator economy · hope · online advertising · sponsorship

Places: Birmingham, Alabama · Boise · Brooklyn · Gainesville, Florida · Los Angeles · Madison · Nashville · Portland, Maine · Saint Paul, Minnesota · San Diego · Tucson, Arizona

Products: YouTube Shorts

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