Forbes spoke with a number of YouTube creators who claim that their earnings-per-video have tumbled over the last few months.
Sources who spoke with reporter John Koetsier estimated a revenue drop of between 50-90% since around the close of 2022.
- The
creator behind the Endpoint101 channel shared analytics with Forbes,
showing consistent views, impressions and clickthroughs on videos, but a
steep drop in revenue from skippable video ads.
- Most other
data seems to confirm the same pattern; a major revenue drop-off
concerning skippable video ads specifically around November 16, 2022.
- YouTube
employees explained that the change resulted from a bug or "invalid
traffic" (meaning essentially fake views designed to make videos look
more popular), though there are some reasons to suspect this may not be
the whole story; for example, some creators have seen the issue resolved
and had their revenue stored.
- Some comments from YouTube staffers attempting to explain the situation have apparently been deleted from creator forums.
