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YouTube rolls out Hype, which lets users boost creators with under 500K subscribers via a hype button that gives videos points, in the US and 38 other countries
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A quick recap of how it works: Viewers have the opportunity to hype up to three videos per week for a creator with under 500,000 subscribers. When a video is hyped, it receives points, giving it a chance to end up on a new ranked leaderboard that you can find in the Explore menu. To level the playing field, hype gives smaller creators a bigger boost. The fewer the subscribers, the bigger the bonus, giving the most authentic emerging creators a better opportunity to get noticed.
Source: YouTube Official Blog.
You used to organically find content and the good stuff would become popular. You would truely see random videos in the sidebar.
Then they changed that so people can only find what they already know what to look for, killing the ability to organically find new content.
Now the ecosystem is so closed up they have to reinvent the wheel because nobody watches like 99% of uploads.