YouTube is constantly making adjustments to the way they operate and we just found out about another one. Originally announced on the YouTube help forums, YouTube is running an experiment related to custom thumbnails over the next few weeks:
[A] small group of viewers (0.3% of those on YouTube site-wide) will see the default, auto-generated thumbnail for all videos (across all channels) instead of the custom thumbnail. For creators, this is the second thumbnail that’s suggested when you upload your video. Note: this will not affect the content of the videos.
There are no current plans to change or remove the ability to add custom thumbnails! We’re running this experiment to improve auto generated thumbnails (a top request we get from creators who use them) by testing the effectiveness of auto-generated thumbnails.
YouTube itself will be the first to tell creators the importance of having a good, custom thumbnail. The platform itself says “[t]humbnails and titles act like billboards to help viewers decide to watch your videos.” So while, in the grand scheme of things, this experiment impacts a small number of creators/views everyone knows a small number of people on YouTube is still a huge number: millions, in fact. Naturally, people are upset. Especially the many creators who supplement or entirely make their living off YouTube.
But platforms tweak things all the time so, while it’s an unpopular opinion, I don’t think the outrage is justified here. YouTube is testing something on their platform in order to make improvements; that’s inevitably going to inconvenience people on some level. There are a lot of people voicing concern that YouTube is doing this with the goal of removing custom thumbnails all together (despite them claiming that’s not the case) and I get that. With so many gripes related to click-bait thumbnails there are a lot of people who probably do want to see the option removed entirely. So voice that concern, fine. But complaining about the experiment itself seems extreme. There’s a lot that YouTube does wrong, but I don’t think this is an example.
What do all of you think? Sound off in the comments below!
[Source: YouTube Help Forum]
