Sit back, it's rant time.

There's a certain ploy used by many Youtubers designed to brainwash unsuspecting viewers into subscribing to their channels and I absolutely hate this tactic.

Youtubers always come up with ways to plug subscribe, like, bell into the video, some of which are pretty cringe. But for the last couple months, some youtibers started throwing graphics of the amount of people who are or aren't subscribed to their channel.

The first person I saw do this was Funny and I can't stand seeing this in videos for two reasons.

1. It's much more annoying than regular plugs. Even the cringe ones only last a couple seconds but these types are much longer and are mostly at the start of the video. You gotta sit through this before the actual content of the video starts, like an extra add.

2. This concept makes no sense. I don't understand why Youtubers would even want to use this tactic. They'll say something like only 30% of the people who watched a video are subscribed and they push for more people to subscribe because of that.

But in reality, the lower the subscriber percentage the better. That's because if 100% of a videos viewers were subs, then that video would not have been introduced to any new people and there wouldn't be any growth.

The higher the percentage, the lower the growth, and the closer a channel is to peaking. So I don't really understand why Youtubers push this.

Rant Over.

YouTubers push this because a lot of the time, telling the viewers to do something makes it much more likely that they'll actually do it - whether it's liking or subscribing. I've known a few channels that did experiments where they say it in some videos and don't in others, and the videos they did it in got much more interaction.

That said, I do agree that there shouldn't be a 100% subscriber watch rate, but I think 30% might be a bit low, and 50% is a bit more "healthy". They probably already realize the point you're making but deploy it as a tactic toward the people who may watch a lot of their content but aren't subscribed.

I think it's kinda silly myself but I guess I kinda get it? like they want everyone subscribed so they get notifications and will watch more content but you won't find me using that tactic any time soon.

Yeah, I find it annoying as well. There's this one youtuber I've watched a few videos from called RabbidLuigi and he thinks he comes up with the perfect place to put those plugs in while he's in the middle of a top 10 countdown, but honestly it's just so ****in annoying.

When it comes to the graphics part, I see quite a few youtubers doing that nowadays...

gamerforlifeforever : I remember plugs and sponsorships used to be in the middle of videos for the longest, kind of like a commercial break, but the standard seems to be at the front or end of videos now.

I noticed it happening with a few youtubers I watch here and there but the trend of 'X% of users who watch this channel' has showed up less and less as time goes on because I guess they either realized that it just wasn't effective or that users were skipping past those 10 seconds.

At the same time the amount of tubers who use small icons or unintrusive segways into subscribing seems to be taking their place. But that isn't much of an issue?

That being said, most of what I watch nowadays are stuff like game reviews, info videos for Binding of Isaac, and sometimes stream highlights. So I'm not really a broad demographic for more mainstream youtubers.

It seems thats just the life of youtube these days, everyone is doing anything they can to get subs and sponsors. As AweshuimeT mentioned above, I have seen countless streamers show that dumb graph showing how many viewers are subscribed. Like cool, its a nice visual, but you're not going to guilt trip me into subbing. Put out good content and I for sure will drop a sub, but never just because you ask for it. I feel this is mostly done to persuade the younger youtube audience, who I could see it working on.

Barathemos : It's not even a visual, it's just a a screenshot of the page. There's no effort put into this and it pads the video length by another 30 to 60 seconds.

to me it doesn't matter if they ring the bell on my channel or not, as long as they are already subscribed to the channel I would be perfectly satisfied

I do agree about the percentage. I’ve been seeing that more often like “looking at my charts only 1/3 of the people who watched my videos are subscribed” and tell people to hit the like button and ring the bell for notifications. Like I’m trying to watch the video, at least do that in the end? If it’s something creative and subtle maybe it would’ve be much of an annoyance (Mr. Ballen does it in a creative way). I mean it’s just a weird and pointless tactic for me

I agree with a lot of what others have said on here. I get it that some make money when more people subscribe and watch their channels I get it. But sometimes they way they do it is annoying. When I'm watching a video I do not want to get a pause during the middle. For the person to tell me to like and subscribe. Another way they do it is they tell you oh this is an intermission I know people don't like adds or sales pitch. Then they tell you to like or subscribe. In my opinion they should do their like and subscribe at the end of the video not during the middle of it.

tornadocam : I don't even think they do get money for subscriptions, just the views based on ads, sponsorships, and link clicks.

Recently I started seeing a lot of people stop doing this a couple minutes in, but not they put a sponsorship segment there instead. I'm used to sponsorships being right at the start of at the very end of the video, not 4 or 5 minutes in.

YouTubers get paid in view count and watch time, if they're paid at all by Google, which many aren't. However, YouTube revenue has been slashed over the years so many of them have to rely on external funding from donations and sponsorships. These used to be at the end of the video but YouTube started showing metrics on what parts of videos are most watched, and now people are able to see what point people generally click away from a video. News related content isn't allowed to talk about anything polarizing for the first 30 seconds of a video, for example, so they've worked out the point at which people are most likely to get comfortable in a video and put the advertisement in shortly after that point. It's the same reason why television ads are placed where they are during a shows airing. Luckily most of them are 90-120 seconds so its extremely easy to know where to skip.

I watch a Pokemon YouTuber that I really don't like who always gets new cards first and he'll get hundreds of thousands of views and be like "only 8% of you are subscribed" halfway through the video like yeah dude its cuz you suck.

The way YouTube's algorithm works is pretty awful, but the way it works is an explanation of why YouTubers are mentioning "% not subscribed" more frequently as it becomes more of a problem. If you watch one video about a game, suddenly all you get for days in your autoplay is several hour long dissection videos of that game and you're left wondering why you left it on for so long. However, if you're lucky enough to see a few smaller videos in the autoplay, there's a higher chance that it'll be from the same YouTuber. Enough of their videos play, maybe in the background, you're enjoying it and value it but may not even remember this person's channel name if it was just playing on your television an hour after you clicked on a video. It's a pretty good call to action as some people really don't remember to do it despite intending on it. The "Subscribe and Bell" at the end of videos is also a reaction to the algorithm as YouTube says it's a feature to not be shown when people you subscribe to upload, so if you press the bell icon, you'll get a little more notice. I haven't seen any bad ones, normally just "Remember to subscribe and hit the bell *ding sound here* for more videos like this one" or something like that, or its at the end. These aren't the same as paid advertisement in terms of irritating parts of the video in my mind, just a necessary part of getting by as things get tighter policy / profit wise.

It's a lot like television, you have to put in plugs at certain points, otherwise people will change the channel before you get to, and it's very important business wise these days to have some call to action to people that are likely to support / repeat business at a viewable part of the content in order to make it effective.

alexanyways : The worst part is that it's getting even worse since I made this. People are trying more and more ways to get people to subscribe, but ways that cut into the video. Like whatever happened to saying like and subscribe at the end of the video?

Two of my current favorite YouTubers that I watch on a daily basis each filmed a 30-60 second asking for subscribers and they just abruptly put them in the middle of each video.