/vt/ - Virtual Youtubers

Like a lot of people I found Cover's decisions sort of baffling when it comes to content and how they seem to pointlessly restrict their talent, but small Japanese company, etc. etc. But out of curiosity I looked at their aggregate numbers and it turns out, in terms of Youtube at least, they aren't small at all. All numbers are presented from socialblade and holostats:

Hololive, all time: 43M subs, 3.4B views
Hololive, last 30 days: 2.3M new subs, 330M views
HoloEN, all time: 7.7M subs, 436M views
HoloEN, last 30 days: 480K subs, 50M views

It's hard to compare with channels that have been around for years, but some recent monthly numbers for some fairly well-known channels, all for May 2021:

MrBeast: 1.4M new subs, 360M views
Dude Perfect: 200K new subs, 133M views
Marshmellow: 300K new subs, 157M views

This is not to say they are on the same level money or advertising wise as those channels. Obviously Hololive has a ton of talents split across multiple countries/languages with different focuses. This can be an advantage: an advertiser like Wacom is targeting a very specific audience of serious illustrators and hobbyists, so while gaming focused Holos are pretty useless Ina is literally the top streamer in her niche. But even HoloEN as a unit is nothing to sneeze at and they've been around less than a year and Gen 2 is around the corner. There's the possibility of even more growth so in some ways now is the time to start bargaining.

So each individual Holo, even Gura, is pretty small potatoes. HoloEN as a gen, and Hololive as whole is actually in the same ballpark as top100 Youtube channels. There's at least the potential for serious money at stake now and while revenue is great risk management becomes more and more of a concern as a company grows and matures. It will only get worse, not better as Cover grows and starts getting entangled with other interests. It's not necessarily bad, I'm happy my oshi is basically set for life, but it makes sense why Coco was unhappy and Cover wasn't willing to just let her do as she pleased despite the money she brought in. It also makes the China theories stupid: China is the embodiment of large possible revenue with high risk strings attached. Feel free to grudge post me.