It Only Takes Two Years, YouTube Shorts Users Reach 1.5 Billion People Per Month

JAKARTA - Many people have been watching short Shorts videos on YouTube after almost two years of YouTube giving lucrative cash bonuses to creators and expanding the platform's features to make it more like TikTok.

A total of 1.5 billion monthly users are already logged into Shorts accounts to watch YouTube's version of short videos called "TikTok".

Launched in 2020, YouTube Shorts is the video streaming platform's answer to TikTok's skyrocketing popularity. Since then, Shorts has gradually crossed platforms, included in recommendations, and the company has added additional features that mimic TikTok, such as sampling.

Even according to Google, as of last April, Shorts garnered 30 billion views a day. This is certainly a very large number compared to TikTok which is still in the range of 1 billion per day.

“This expansion has launched a new trend on the platform: 'the rise of multiformat creators,'” YouTube said in a press release, as quoted by The Verge.

But content creators making more short videos are no accident. YouTube really wants it and has offered creators payments to sweeten the deal and pull them away from other platforms.

Last year, the company launched a $100 million Shorts fund that pays creators up to $10,000 per month when they make popular videos. The payout amount varies according to engagement and where the audience is.

When monetizing a longer YouTube video, the ad plays before or during the video, and the creator gets a cut in revenue. However, instead of running ads in front of every short clip, YouTube should find other ways to help creators monetize their short videos. As Shorts make up a larger share of views on YouTube, the company had to make up for the reduced ad revenue.

"We're experiencing a bit of a drag to revenue growth as Shorts views grow as a percentage of total YouTube time," Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat said in April. “We are testing monetization on short films, and the advertiser's feedback and early results are very encouraging.”

The fund is not intended to be a long-term way for content creators to monetize short films. In a blog post from February, YouTube said it was exploring additional ways for content creators to make money, including branded content and the ability to shop from video shorts.

In May, the company began rolling out ads on Shorts globally, although at the time it wasn't sharing ad revenue with content creators, according to TechCrunch.

Compared to other platforms like TikTok, YouTube is usually considered a place where content creators can make more money from their content thanks to ad revenue sharing programs.

Over 1.5 billion logged in Shorts viewers offer advertisers the opportunity to serve more targeted ads now that Shorts is more established. "Launching ads worldwide is an exciting milestone for advertisers," YouTube said in a May blog post.