>>15744462Ok, so I just spend 40 minutes testing this
I have a pretty old account
Never posted a single comment on Youtube, in chat or in comment section
Only watch chuubas the whole day
Like every chuuba video I open, even if I don't plan to stick around
Sometimes watch multiple videos at once on two screens
Have uBlock always enabled, never turn it off, even for my oshi
I'm still counted as view. Even with uBlock on.
As soon as I press play on a video, I'm counted. I checked this on my phone, which is on data, while my PC is on Wi-Fi. If pause the video, I stop being counted immediately. Pick related is supposed to show how viewcount goes to 2 when I start the video, and then goes to 3 when I open it on my phone.
If I mute the video, I'm still being counted
If I open a second tab or a new window, I stop being counted for current stream and immediately start being counted for a new one
And here's the kicker: sometimes I don't get counted right away. It may take a lot of time to get me counted, 5 minutes or so, even on a stream with zero views. Also, sometimes my view gets counted, but then after like 5 minutes gets deleted. I assume it's because of the uBlock. It doesn't happen every time. When it happens though, I can disable uBlock and I get my view back, not always immediately, but pretty quickly.
Obviously, it's just a quick test on a random stream (which is not from my region, btw) so take it with a grain of salt.
My personal crackpot theory is that the way Youtube verifies if you're a viewer or not right now is by observing your behavior for a period of time (maybe up to 20 minutes), such as, how you interact with the Youtube tab, how fast you click on stuff, where you hovering your mouse, etc. And this is why it takes them forever to add viewers to the count. This is also why peaks are now basically non-existent, because by the time viewers got verified, they already left. And Youtube also re-verifies you for every stream.
