Report finds that most YouTube videos are never displayed – why?

Published: April 29, 2025

From India McCarty

YouTube has over 14.7 billion videos, but did you know that most of them have never been seen before?

“The talks that we have through YouTube are based on a impoverished view of the platform,” Ryan Mcgrady, Senior Researcher at the initiative for the digital public infrastructure at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told The BBC. “If we only concentrate on what is popular, we miss how the vast majority of people YouTube actually use as uploader and overlook the role that she plays in our society.”

Red Shark News has summarized research and explains: “The majority of the YouTube videos receive under 500 views. In fact, the average number of YouTube views is 41.” She added: “4% of the videos have never been viewed.”

YouTube is the new Hollywood, isn't it? But is a secret platform that is driven by an almighty and secret algorithm, really the best choice to hang up a whole new economy? pic.twitter.com/c6r32dmhuh

– Redshark News (@RedSharknews) March 18, 2025

“YouTube is not just a vehicle for professionals,” Mcgrady continued. “We rely on it as the standard video arm of the Internet. YouTube is the infrastructure. It is a critical tool with which normal people communicate.”

However, YouTube argued that there was no prioritizing videos with high information before the recommendation of videos to users prioritized.

“YouTube's magic is that people, whether a video 60 calls or six million, find a community, learn a new ability, maintain or share their voice with the world,” said Boot Bullwinkle, a YouTube spokesman. “Each channel begins with the same empty slate from which it can build an audience and expand a business.”

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A research published by Google Engineers Paul Covington, Jay Adams and Emre Sargin shared the way how the Algorithm from YouTube works, and the list of elements that lead to a video recommended to a user:

1. 1. Click rate (the probability that someone clicks on your video after you have seen it)
   2. Take a look at the time (the combined time that spectators spend to look at your videos)
   3. How many videos did the user see from their channel
   4. As recently the user saw a video on the same topic
   5. What the user has been looking for in the past
   6. The previously viewed videos of the user
   7. The demographic information and the further location of the user

Many have questioned youtube's claims that it does not exceed content about another, and accuse the site of increasing videos from which they know, inflammatory or controversial.

“The Internet is deeply worried and we cannot ignore the way in which technology companies tighten these problems,” said Mcgrady.

Like many other social media websites, YouTube holds its algorithmic secrets close to the vest. Regardless of whether the videos are strengthened or not, YouTube remains a platform on which people around the world can connect – no matter how many views they get.

Read on: A look at YouTube 20 years after his start

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