YouTube is changing its view count: Starting a video will count as a view

YouTube is changing the way it calculates video view counts. Under the new system, which the platform will implement starting August 24, the moment a video begins playing or a user joins a live stream will be recorded as a view.

The company states that it has used multiple view measurement methods for different video formats until now. With the new implementation, a counting model similar to the one used for Shorts content for about a year will now be applied to standard videos as well. On TikTok and Instagram, videos are also counted as views as soon as they begin playing.

The change may lead to an increase in public view counts, especially for videos that users only glance at for a few seconds or scroll past quickly. For this reason, the total view count may become a more limited indicator than before for understanding how much attention a piece of content has received or to what extent it has been watched.

YouTube will not completely eliminate the current measurement. The platform will continue to display the previously used view approach in content creators' Analytics tools under the name "Engaged views." This metric may be more decisive for content creators and advertisers in evaluating user interest.

The decision comes shortly after YouTube announced changes to its monetization requirements for content creators. The platform had announced that starting next year, it would raise the thresholds for new content creators looking to earn money from advertising and subscription revenue.

According to the new rules, content creators will need to reach at least 8 thousand qualified watch hours in the last 12 months or 20 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days. In the current system, the requirement is 4 thousand watch hours in the last 12 months or 10 million Shorts views in the last 90 days, along with 1,000 subscribers.