YouTube’s decision to stop displaying an exact number of subscriber count for channels is killing the subscriber analytics site Social Blade. While Social Blade might come off as one more analytics site for someone outside YouTube, for creators, Social Blade was a crucial part of their journey on YouTube. Several creators have started #SaveSocialBlade to prevent Social Blade from becoming defunct due to YouTube’s decision.
“If this had come into effect a few months sooner, the whole PewDiePie vs T-Series meme wouldn’t have even been a thing #SaveSocialBlade,” tweeted Grandayy.
The decision to hide the precise number of subscribers and show rounded off figures (displaying 10M instead of 10,122,000 subscribers) is going to bring several changes to the YouTube community. Primarily, several channels that were dedicated to the live streaming of subscriber battles such as T-Series vs. PewDewPie are not going to work any longer. Social Blade was the first ever analytics site to fuel the subscriber count-driven culture on YouTube.
Social Blade’s real-time subscriber count analytics have turned out to be a measure of success and failure for several YouTubers. The infamous Tati Westbrook vs. James Charles feud wouldn’t have been as popular as it was, if not for people sharing Social Blade’s real-time stats of subscriber counts of both the creators to fuel drama. As a matter of fact, T-Series’ rise in subscriber count was first noticed by Social Blade which later led to the whole ‘T-Series vs. PewDewPie’ war on who has more subscribers on YouTube.
Keeping the controversies aside, Social Blade was also responsible for the development of a culture which encouraged celebrating each time a creator crossed 1 Million, 5 Million or more subscribers. Celebrating milestones pushed the creators into generating better content for the sake of having more subscribers. The host of Tonight Show Jimmy Fallon celebrated his 20 million subscriber milestone with his audience by using a live Social Blade counter.
All these reasons justify the reason behind creators’ anger over how YouTube is killing Social Blade. Several Social Blade fans managed to tweet extensively and get #SaveSocialBlade trending across the United States. It seems as if YouTube is trying to get the creators to use its internal metric tools on the platform. However, doing so at the expense of Social Blade is not entirely fair.
It is reported that a YouTube representative reached out to Social Blade after the trending hashtag to discuss the upcoming changes on the platform.
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