YouTube just announced views now count the moment a video starts playing, no minimum watch time required. They're calling it a "standardization" to show creators "true exposure," but let's translate: the same view counts whether someone watched three seconds or three minutes. This makes their advertising metrics look better, which makes creators look better to brand partners, which makes YouTube look better to investors. Everyone wins except anyone trying to understand what these numbers actually mean. The company explicitly says earnings won't change, which is another way of saying "we're changing how the game is scored but keeping what we take from it." Refreshingly honest about the con. Bleakly, that's progress for a platform giant.