382 YouTube Millionaires Show How The Site’s New Focus Is Working

YouTube has taken several steps in the past year to foster an increased number of subscriptions across the site. During the site’s Vidcon presentation, Global Head of Content Operations Tom Pickett and CMO Danielle Tiedt used some key stats to show the impact these changes have had across all channels. Pickett and Tiedt noted that subscriptions across the site have increased by 300%. More generally, there are now 382 creators with at least a million subscribers.

YouTube is obviously proud of its growing number of YouTube Millionaires, seeing as how it is now awarding a ‘golden play button‘ to anyone who achieves the seven-digit milestone. A year ago, there were fewer than 100 millionaires, but the volume of subscriptions has grown so much that there is already a ten million subscribers club, which has welcomed its first three members–Smosh, PewDiePie, and Jenna Marbles–in the past few months.

But exponential subscriber growth isn’t limited to YouTube’s 1%. With four times as many active subscriptions compared to last year, each channel with a following has much better access to regular viewers, engaged fans, and active commenters. Your mileage may vary as to whether that last one is actually a good thing.