We all have our different reasons for creating our channels, many stories can be found here (thanks @EnglishwithLiz )
https://community.tubebuddy.com/index.php?threads/32840/
Yes I acknowledge that for us small players the journey, especially when just starting out, is going to be a long, hard, rough and grough, painful road to whatever “big” milestone you’ve set, along with the small ones that we’ve stuck in there somewhere, and when we get our FIRST subscriber it’s like a big deal, and the excitement of seeing those numbers growing is really something to feel great about, but what many creators CANNOT accept is seeing that “number” decrease, which results in them coming on here or other forums, writing out “why did this happen, why why WHY”, let me share my thoughts.
As @Beanie Draws pointed out in another thread here: https://community.tubebuddy.com/index.php?threads/33441/post-102611
WHY would a viewer subscribe to you in the first place? What reason did you give them to make them slam dunk that big red? And even if they did, did you maintain said reason or reasons for keeping them subscribed to you? No one is obliged to subscribe, they do that because something in one of your videos triggered their interest and they hit that subscribe button in the hopes that you’ll continue to upload that kind of content.
Years ago, the creators were the reason for subscribers, eg a 15 year old could just sit in front of her webcam and talk about her crap school life or a boy she liked, or an elderly man could talk about his life and things he experienced, and that was stuff viewers got hooked on during YouTubes early times, but times have changed, which in short means it’s all about the content, and NOT the creator, as Nick Nimmin says, viewers get hooked on the CONTENT, because it has value to that viewer, it has something the viewers WANT, whether it be informational, educational or just entertainment, no one cares about the creators as much now, it’s all about the content, and that’s why we keep pushing to the new comers, create content that doesn’t SUCK!!
Subscriber numbers, as I said before, are a form of excitement, especially when that number goes up, but quickly becomes a depressing number when they go nowhere, view counts are the same, but why are you even focusing on that? It’s a number, and like it or not, it will go up, AND down, so you better get used to seeing that! You think you’re hard done by losing ONE subscriber? Think of the big channels, yeah they have big numbers, but do you think they got there easily?? They lost more subscribers than many of our channels will ever accumulate (slight exaggeration but we get the point), and that didn’t bother them.
And as for those subscriber numbers, yeah they look really low compared to other channels, you may only have 20 or 50 or whatever, now imagine those subscribers ACTUALLY standing right in front of you as you’re presenting your content to them, quite daunting isn’t it? Imagine Mr Beast having to make his content to his subscribers as they stood in front of him, just something for you to think about.
And of course there’s this YouTube purge that I’ve read about frequently, you’ll be losing subscribers NOT because someone unsubscribed, but because YouTube has come through with it’s big mean broom, and done a clean out of inactive subscribers on our channels, mine included.
So next time you see your sub count has gone down, don’t get all depressed and bent out of shape, instead, just keep uploading your content, because you still have many other subscribers that have stayed with you through your journey, and a good portion of them will be your fans, possibly a few super fans too, so head up, positive attitudes, smile and enjoy uploading

As always, feel free to add your 2 cents.
https://community.tubebuddy.com/index.php?threads/32840/
Yes I acknowledge that for us small players the journey, especially when just starting out, is going to be a long, hard, rough and grough, painful road to whatever “big” milestone you’ve set, along with the small ones that we’ve stuck in there somewhere, and when we get our FIRST subscriber it’s like a big deal, and the excitement of seeing those numbers growing is really something to feel great about, but what many creators CANNOT accept is seeing that “number” decrease, which results in them coming on here or other forums, writing out “why did this happen, why why WHY”, let me share my thoughts.
As @Beanie Draws pointed out in another thread here: https://community.tubebuddy.com/index.php?threads/33441/post-102611
WHY would a viewer subscribe to you in the first place? What reason did you give them to make them slam dunk that big red? And even if they did, did you maintain said reason or reasons for keeping them subscribed to you? No one is obliged to subscribe, they do that because something in one of your videos triggered their interest and they hit that subscribe button in the hopes that you’ll continue to upload that kind of content.
Years ago, the creators were the reason for subscribers, eg a 15 year old could just sit in front of her webcam and talk about her crap school life or a boy she liked, or an elderly man could talk about his life and things he experienced, and that was stuff viewers got hooked on during YouTubes early times, but times have changed, which in short means it’s all about the content, and NOT the creator, as Nick Nimmin says, viewers get hooked on the CONTENT, because it has value to that viewer, it has something the viewers WANT, whether it be informational, educational or just entertainment, no one cares about the creators as much now, it’s all about the content, and that’s why we keep pushing to the new comers, create content that doesn’t SUCK!!
Subscriber numbers, as I said before, are a form of excitement, especially when that number goes up, but quickly becomes a depressing number when they go nowhere, view counts are the same, but why are you even focusing on that? It’s a number, and like it or not, it will go up, AND down, so you better get used to seeing that! You think you’re hard done by losing ONE subscriber? Think of the big channels, yeah they have big numbers, but do you think they got there easily?? They lost more subscribers than many of our channels will ever accumulate (slight exaggeration but we get the point), and that didn’t bother them.
And as for those subscriber numbers, yeah they look really low compared to other channels, you may only have 20 or 50 or whatever, now imagine those subscribers ACTUALLY standing right in front of you as you’re presenting your content to them, quite daunting isn’t it? Imagine Mr Beast having to make his content to his subscribers as they stood in front of him, just something for you to think about.
And of course there’s this YouTube purge that I’ve read about frequently, you’ll be losing subscribers NOT because someone unsubscribed, but because YouTube has come through with it’s big mean broom, and done a clean out of inactive subscribers on our channels, mine included.
So next time you see your sub count has gone down, don’t get all depressed and bent out of shape, instead, just keep uploading your content, because you still have many other subscribers that have stayed with you through your journey, and a good portion of them will be your fans, possibly a few super fans too, so head up, positive attitudes, smile and enjoy uploading
As always, feel free to add your 2 cents.
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