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According to this video by The Game Theorists, YouTube does not push every video a channel makes to all of that channel's subscriber inboxes. Rather, a subscriber only sees videos from channels they commonly interact with, because that's better marketing.

When I first heard about this I thought the issue was merely a technical limitation. I.e. it would be technologically prohibitive to alert every YouTube user of every new video from every one of their subscriptions. (Considering the massive amounts of data YouTube can transmit this seems unlikely, but who knows.) But the Game Theorists video does not mention technical limitations, just that "YouTube's algorithms are optimized to drive increased watch time".

Is this true? Does YouTube send every video to every subscription inbox or not?

Note that I'm not talking about the YouTube homepage but the subscriptions inbox. I mean, obviously the recommended videos and "updates from channel X" stuff on the homepage are chosen to optimize engagement (and to be honest, it wasn't perfectly clear which one the Game Theorists video was talking about).

Note also that I'm not talking about mobile or google or email notifications. Just about what shows up naturally in the subscription inbox when you click "subscribe".

chiralphysicist
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Calvin's Hobbies
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  • Would giving examples from my own suscriber inbox be original research? – Babika Babaka Sep 16 '16 at 10:57
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    Is this even answerable? You're asking about intrinsics of the closed-source algorithms of a huge, creepy internet company. Even if someone works there, they aren't going to be able to answer this. – cat Sep 16 '16 at 11:47
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    I cannot confirm nor deny the question as a fact to be true, but I did notice I missed a few videos that did not show up on my subscriptions page. I open a video from a channel and I notice a new video uploaded a few hours ago, before the video I was watching, that did not find on my feed. There are also moments when I receive a video a few minutes or hours ,on my feed, after they were published. I just thought this was a technical glitch related to my account. – AtulBhatS Sep 16 '16 at 12:04
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    I am subscribed to a number of channels that I never watch. Looking over the past 100 videos, which have all came in within the past day, a vast majority of these videos have come in from channels that I haven't touched in over a year. It does also include channels that I touch daily. I took a brief glance at a few of these channels, and there does not appear to be anything missing. My 15 minute conclusion is that everything is included, but this does *not* line up with what I've heard from others. – Thebluefish Sep 16 '16 at 16:27
  • @cat I don't know if it's answerable but there may be more concrete information out there than what the video mentioned, either from YouTube itself or more thorough journalists. – Calvin's Hobbies Sep 16 '16 at 17:21
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    I have subscribed channels with dozens of new videos i was never directly notified about on my feed until I actively looking for their channel. However, I watch 2 videos by one channel about something I never looked at before, and suddenly that channel is my top recommended channel to subscribe to, and I see their videos dozens of times over the next (as of now, the last) week. A channel I was not subscribed to had dozens of videos in my feed, while dozens I am subscribed to have 0. – Ryan Sep 16 '16 at 17:26
  • There is no actual "sending" involved when a video appears in a subbox. If it worked as advertised then when going to view your subbox the server just checks every channel you subbed and then picks new videos you haven't watched yet. (AKA The most obvious scalable solution would be to have a poll mechanism instead of a push one) – ratchet freak Sep 19 '16 at 11:19
  • It's worth noting that, as an internet company that pushes changes daily, whatever the answer is today might not be the correct answer tomorrow. And even if YouTube *wants* a certain behavior, there's always the possibility of bugs, especially with such a huge site. – Dan Staley Nov 01 '16 at 23:40
  • I actually just scrolled down through my feed through several dozen worth of batches of videos till my browser lagged and was unable to find a video made 2 days ago listed in my own feed from a channel I regularly watch. Whether this is blindness on my part or an error I cannot say but I will say it is the only video I noticed missing so it's also possible it was missing for other reasons such as a minor hiccup or me having watched the video. I'm also only subbed to 10 channels so the missing video stood out immediately. – user64742 Jan 26 '19 at 02:25

1 Answers1

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Yes, this is confirmed by YouTube Help Center.

Subscriptions are an important part of your YouTube experience. If there are specific channels that you like, subscribe to them. Once you do, any videos that channel publishes will show up in your Subscriptions feed. This makes it simple to keep up with the content you care about.

Reference: YouTube Help Center

Community
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Sakib Arifin
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    This site usually frowns a bit on an argument where the only proof boils down to "the people in question say they do this" but given the way the question is phrased it's hard to prove a negative. – Shadur Oct 31 '16 at 11:25