Yes.
The video is still provided by youtube and they can simply take “note” at the time they are streaming out certain parts of the video and see how much percent were watched.
So, it seems like not.
I just tested this by finding some random video about cheese with a low number of views (827 as I write this).
I watched the WHOLE DAMN THING. TWICE. Kidding, I love cheese, it was lovely. Both times I watched it via Invidious instances. It was 827 before, still 827 right now.
Just FYI, view counts don’t always update in realtime. Depending on how many views a video already has and how many views it’s had in the last hour, the view count may only refresh server-side in intervals.
Yep, up to 830 now. The cheese stands in a crowd! You’re right.
Even watching on YouTube like that normally won’t show the counter go up. It’s not a real time counter.
The only time I know YouTube view counts are accurate and not being fuzzed, is when I upload a video, instantly make it private, and never click on it. Zero views. Confirmed. 😊🤷🏼♀️
You need to finish the study by proving it does change the views when you watch via youtube directly
To Youtube such views probably look more like a viewbot than a legitimate user, so they don’t count it.
Most likely. Even if you aren’t directly asking YouTube for the video, the other site does.
Honestly no idea. It would depend if the views are counted from an api request or from amount of clients asking for the video. Newpipe Invidious and many other 3rd party frontends dont use youtubes api cause they would quickly be blocked and sued.
I feel like that’s not how API’s work.
YouTube doesn’t make public their view counting algorithm so that it can’t be gamed, so it’s anyone’s guess.
Ohhhhh! So that’s why a lot of the comments to this post contradict each other. Well, that makes senses.
Yep. I have a few hunches about how it works (I would guess that the answer to your original question is “no” or “only kinda,” for instance) but honestly my hunches are likely no better than tea leaves and significantly less tasty.
