u/Bloodmeister

As you know, starting August 24, YouTube is changing how public views are counted.

A view will count essentially as soon as a video starts playing from the first frame.

A YouTube “view” isn't just some internal analytics metric. We intuitively know how many views mean for the popularity of a video. It has accumulated 20 years of cultural meaning.

We all intuitively understand what these numbers mean:

• 10K views: modest video
• 100K: a successful video
• 1M: legitimately viral
• 10M: huge
• 100M+: major cultural phenomenon

Now YouTube is destroying this cultural continuity.

Why would you deliberately break the statistical and cultural continuity of your own platform after 20 years? This isn't just inflation of view counts. It's destroying the intuitions of the users of the platform.

What's worse is there was such an obvious solution:

Keep “views” as the existing metric.
Introduce a second metric called “plays” or “starts.”

They could have easily made this:

2.3M plays · 1.4M views

Now creators get the TikTok/Instagram-style playback metric YouTube apparently wants, while the existing view count retains its historical meaning.

Unbelievably infuriating.

-Blown three 3-1 leads
-Blown five 3-2 leads
-Blown one 2-0 lead
-Lost Game 7 at home four times (5 if you count the Bubble)
-Were eliminated 10 times at home (11 if you count the Bubble)
-Went 16-34 with a chance to close out a series

from - https://x.com/MikePradaNBA/status/1750197273336700990?s=20

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If this was his record in the NFL, even if he was a consensus HoF coach after winning an SB, I think he'd have coached himself out of a HoF spot later on.

Dec 2025 - Look at the \"Cat in a Heated Blanket\" thumbnail

Today - Look at the same \"Cat in a Heated Blanket\" thumbnail

I have noticed over the last few months that YouTube thumbnails suddenly seem noticeably blurry/low-res on desktop across browsers. I thought they no longer looked as crisp as I remember.

This is the definitive evidence:

I found an old screenshot from December 2025 on my PC.
I compared the same YouTube video thumbnail on that Dec 2025 screenshot which has a much sharper thumbnail to the one I can see now, and the result is unmistakable.

The thumbnail is the same displayed size in both screenshots (100% zoom on browser), but to my eyes the December 2025 version is unmistakably sharper, especially the cat's face/fur and the texture of the blanket.

Look at the Cat in a Heated Blanket thumbnail quality from Dec 2025:

https://i.imgur.com/zOWH6QR.png

Now look at the same exact thumbnail at the same exact size from just now. (It's the same on Edge as well, so it's not a browser issue)

https://i.imgur.com/t6zXn6F.png

Imgur album view for an easier comparison: https://imgur.com/gallery/why-is-youtube-intentionally-giving-us-lower-thumbnail-quality-same-thumbnail-looks-noticeably-blurrier-now-than-dec-2025-z54E6fc

Has anyone else seen the difference on your own YouTube?

I used Chrome DevTools/browser console and used the MKBHD channel for testing: YouTube has a 1280×720 version available, but the channel page is serving the much smaller 336×188 derivative.

How do we fix this?

The enshittification of everything continues...

Why do they have to ruin everything?

	Steve Nash	Russell Westbrook
MVP	2	1
All-NBA	7	9
1st Team All-NBA	3	2
All-Star	8	9
Scoring titles	0	2
Assist titles	5	3
Championships	0	0
Conference Finals	4	4
Career peak	2× MVP	MVP + historic triple-double season

I am a frequent Bill Simmons/Zach Lowe/Ryan Russell listener. I occasionally listen to Rewatchables.

I must have listened to maybe 30-40 episodes of Chris in any podcast in total. So I am by no means a CR head.

I do not want to listen to The Watch, as I am not interested in MCU movies and celeb news, which is what the kind of topics that they discuss judging by the recent podcast ep descriptions.

I like CR. I find the small things he says he liked about a movie or some observation he makes on The Rewatchables much more relatable. I think he's much more interesting than Sean Fennessey, who I don't like at all.

So the question is this:

How does one get more CR? Is The Watch the only regular podcast he hosts?

I don't want to watch anything like the LOTR TV show on Amazon to just listen to CR talk about it on that LOTR podcast.

https://preview.redd.it/f0slw0h75nih1.png?width=360&format=png&auto=webp&s=2969101a9ccc4122c1f581117190f6efbf0d0ff1

How do I go back to the old YouTube number of views and time layout? Is there a Chrome extension for this?

It used to be like one of those COD4 tutorials where you're in a practice range or something. I have very vague memories of it.

The shocking thing is I can't seem to find it at all on YouTube, as "tutorial" shows user-made videos. I've tried multiple keywords in searches.

Has anyone noticed this? They’re both jacked, middle aged dudes, but Brandt is a happy family man who’s still on ESPN. Still has full head of hair. Anything else I’m missing?

I am the most casual NFL fan, and I am sure fans like me make up the vast majority of the viewership.

So why is everyone trying to force him out and replace him with a boring but "knowledgable" commentator?

(Yes, DWIs are bad and deserve a suspension.)

I told him I quit, and the disappointment in his voice was palpable.

Ironically I was listening to Zach's latest pod sponsored by FanDuel when he called.

Too bad I couldn't make him listen to the podcast while we were on the phone call because the pod won't play when I am in a call.