Starting in September, YouTube will stop showing full subscriber counts for all channels with more than 1,000 subscribers.
This change was originally planned to roll out in August, but is now going to be rolled out gradually throughout September.
The update will take place across YouTube and the public YouTube Data API Service. Creators will continue to see their full subscriber counts privately in YouTube Studio and YouTube Analytics.
Here are some examples of what public subscriber counts will look like after September:
- 4,227 subscribers will be displayed as “4.2k” until the channel reaches 4,300.
- 133,017 subscribers will be displayed as “133K” until the channel reaches 134,000.
- 51,389,232 subscribers will be displayed as “51M” until the channel reaches 52,000,000.
YouTube cites several reasons for making this change:
“Beyond creating more consistency, this addresses creator concerns about stress and wellbeing, specifically around tracking public subscriber counts in real time. We hope this helps all creators focus on telling their story, and experience less pressure about the numbers.”
It’s likely that not everyone will be happy with YouTube’s new way of displaying subscriber counts. Actually, the number of downvotes on the company’s own posts confirms that much.
Like the company says, this change may end up having a positive effect on the YouTube community as a whole.
