A video from YouTube’s Creator Insider channel has drawn complains from some members of the video site’s creative community. The aggrieved creators are up in arms after learning that creators who subscribe to their channels are not automatically notified every time they begin a live stream.
The epicenter of this complaint is a video released by YouTube and featuring two of the Product Managers for the site’s YouTube Live team. One of those employees, Meghan, explained that the only way for subscribers to ensure that they receive notifications every time a channel goes live is by clicking on the bell icon on that channel’s landing page. Subscribers who don’t go that extra step will be left in an “occasional notification state” that features “algorithmically-determined notifications.” In other words, “your most active subscribers…who are watching your channel and your live streams are going to get notifications as soon as you go live,” Meghan explained.
The comments in question begin about 11 minutes into this video, which also runs through some recent updates to YouTube’s live streaming feature:
Subscribe to get the latest creator news
The video reignited a controversy that has long raged on YouTube. Back in 2016, creators complained that their subscribers were not seeing all their videos, and now, several are airing similar grievances.
Hey @TeamYouTube when I subscribed to a seventeen magazine subscription when I was younger, I never thought they were spamming my house with mail. I wanted the subscription. When my subscribers subscribe to me on YouTube, they don’t think it’s spam. They wanted the subscription.
— Adelaine M♡RIN (@AdelaineMorin) March 25, 2018
I’ve been doing Youtube almost 10 years, and I feel like at no point has a video actually made it to 100% of people’s sub boxes. Then again, I always get people that don’t get notifications that I’m live on Twitch either. At least I think everyone gets my Tweets. RIGHT?!?
— Crendor (@crendor) March 24, 2018
Others have come to the video site’s defense:
I know that the Subscriptions feed isn’t 100% reliable, but this controversial video doesn’t seem to be talking about the Subscriptions feed at all, like most are saying it does. Maybe I’m just misinterpreting everything, but it seems like Twitter is misconstruing this. (3/3)
— John Wolfe (@JohnWolfeYT) March 24, 2018
Even the creators who are mad at YouTube should heed one of the Creator Insider video’s key pieces of advice: If you want your fans to be notified every time you upload a new video or start a new live stream, you should encourage them to click the bell icon.
