The Fallacy of Please Like and Subscribe

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Over the years I have subscribed to hundreds of podcasts, YouTube channels, people on Instagram TikTok and more. I then stopped subscribing, and sometimes like, but never when I’m asked to by the content creators. The short reason for not liking and subscribing now is that if I subscribe I usually grow tired with the content and stop watching, so my subscription is an illusion. The reason I don’t “like” plenty of videos is simply that the videos are not worth a like.

## Resilience – Viewing Time

Paradoxically something is a much better indicator. Resilience. That is not the term YouTube uses. It speaks of viewing time and viewing minutes. If I was to measure a video’s success I would look at whether it was paused, and whether it was watched in a single go or if it was paused and then resumed, or if it was abandonned, as well as how fast it was abandoned.

## Let Us Decide Whether to Like and Subscribe

I also think that saying “please like and subscribe” before people have watched the content is counter-productive. When videos have this habit I stop watching. If your raison d’être is for me to like and subscribe your content creation strategy is wrong. It might be right for the algorithms but it’s awful for the viewer. The reason for this is that it inflates the video’s value in the algorithms so viewers end up with user generated crap, rather than worthwhile content.

## A True Like

For me, feeling the desire to like a video, at the end is interesting. If we like a video at the start it’s because we were nagged too. If we like it at the end it’s because we felt it was worth a like. I rarely like content that has millions of views. I do like contents that I see as holding valuable information.

For me, saying “please like and subscribe” is spam. It adds nothing to the video except wasting a few seconds. It also makes it so that a lot of content is longer than it needs to be. Some videos will ask you three or four times to like and subscribe.

I notice that the same bad habit is coming to FB reels, TikTok and Instagram reels. “Like and subscribe” appears on videos that are just spam. They’re just long enough to be seen, and to say “please like and subscribe. The spam videos are growing, so toxic habits from YouTube are bleeding into reels.

## The Algorithms Make us Watch More of the Same Anyway

The paradox of the “please like and subscribe” habit is that the content that they want us to like and subscribe to will autoomatically be the next suggested video anyway. This inflates the views for that channel because it gives the illusion that we chose to watch more. In fact the algorithms decided for us.

## The Wrong Motivation for Content Creation

Videos should not be created to be liked, or to get people to like and subscribe. They should be created to give people a few minutes of an interesting experience. They should show a quiet village during the peak of the pandemic for example, or a boat crossing a nice landscape, or experiment with 360 video. They should not be created to get likes and subscriptions. They should be created so that people think “I need to share this content with my social network”.

A true measure of success is having someone watching a video, and then sharing it, because by sharing it this is an endorsement that goes beyond telling an algorithm that you liked it. It’s telling hundreds of others, in theory that something is worth watching.

If someone writes a blog post about a video it also adds value becausse it reaches a new audience, an audience that may be used to the medium of the written word rather than video.

## The New Hype Feature

To give the illusion of helping smaller creators YouTube has added the hype option in three or four countries for testing. The idea is that people can promote video content with a note to the explore tab, to help smaller creators get visibility.

The fallacy in this approach is that to be seen in the first place, as a small content creator, is almost impossible, so the hype function will benefit those that are not invisible, to start with, rather than those that are new or smaller content creators.

## And Finally

When YouTube pushes you to see several videos by the same creator in a row you have no need to subscribe, and when you’re asked to like and subscribe in the first minute of a video I stop watching. Sometimes I watch reels on FB and YouTube but as soon as they say “please subscribe” I go from “I’m about to share this content” to “Ok, I won’t share it”.

## The Web as Browsing Medium

The reason for which “like and subscribe” is such a bad phrase for video content, and podcasts, is that if one content creator asks, it’s okay, but when every content creator asks you to like and subscribe, the like and subscribe loses of its value because you encourage spammer behaviour.

Reels are built entirely around “browsing and sharing” and if you ask people to subscribe you end up with less browsing, and less discovery.

## In Conclusion

If a video is well made, and compelling I am likely to like and share it, whereas if someone asks me to like and subscribe, when it’s mediocre I am likely to ignore the like, and not subscribe. In my eyes finding a video compelling enough to share is a victory. Liking is superficial and subscribing gives the illusion of an audience.