The entire way this issue was figured out was because it only affected desktop views that weren't monetized to begin with, which the guy in the linked video guessed meant adblockers.

If the monetization weren't limited to ad-watching views, we'd probably still be trying to figure out what happened.

They also recently introduced age estimation in the US, which a lot of channels reported as the culprit for reduced view number in their videos.

In short, age estimation will restrict videos from viewers, and a creator has almost no way of knowing if a video was age-restricted or not.

Bellular has a video about the situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSYLe6Yq4R4

Couldn't that affect third party sponsorships, though? Both getting them and reporting numbers to existing ones?

Presumably, it would affect that, and also long-term channel growth. Which would be dastardly if it were intentional, because it would basically cull the platform of channels who voice support for ad blocking.

I wonder if CTR was affected. Could one of the affected channels could have detected that not adding up? I guess it was probably already blocked for privacy. Maybe I shouldn't be giving them ideas.

Interestingly, anybody can now measure what percentage of any channel's viewers run ad blockers, by using publicly available data on how much their views dropped during this period.

Well at least people's primary source of income isn't hidden behind a black box by corporate overlords or anything

Just to be clear, YouTube doesn’t pay users based on view count, it revenue shares based on money generated by ads and subscriptions. Using an ad blocker without premium has always meant the creator doesn’t get paid for the views, because that traffic generates no revenue for them to share

No, but the algorithm puts their content in front of people in part based on how many views it has gotten. Or does whatever the heck the shadowy black box wants it to.

Yes but with the intent that they generate revenue, if ad blocked users had distinct behavior different from ad watching users it was mostly ignored while I was there

For better or worse a gigantic portion of people who make their livelihoods on the internet are fully dependent on closed source platforms. Do you think people who sell things on Shopify or Etsy are any more able to scrutinize the systems they depend on to make a living?

You can sell on Shopify _and_ Etsy and make money on both (as long as you don’t cross Mastercard/Visa).

Turning a profit on video outside YouTube is a far more difficult undertaking.

My point: This problem is far worse when a monopoly is involved.

So what's your suggestion for how YouTube could be doing better here?

Especially in the scenario that (as the top level comment in this thread suggests) YouTube didn't actually make any changes and the reason the views dropped is because EasyList added an entry to their privacy filter. Should YouTube have recognized that they're in a quasi-monopoly position as you suggest, done the research to identify EasyList as the culprit behind the view metric drop, and then released a change to their client to add a new endpoint which isn't blocked by EasyList?

We don't know that the EasyList theory is what's really going on here, but if you're going to tar YouTube/Google over this ordeal, then I think you have some responsibility for suggesting how they could have done better.

YouTube can’t “do better”; the problem is the monopoly (their moat is too damn wide).