Right now, the best way to gauge a creator’s popularity is by their YouTube subscriber or follower count, in addition to viewing total views. In the future, YouTube may no longer display the subscriber count of a creator.
For an initial phase and in testing, only for artist content on YouTube Music, the total subscriber display will be replaced with the monthly audience metric. This new metric will be reflected in YouTube Music video and audio content, YouTube videos, and YouTube Shorts videos.
The new Monthly Audience metric counts the number of viewers and the number of active listeners per day. The numbers that will be displayed are the unique number of listeners and viewers over the past 28 days. Some artists will continue to see total subscribers, while others will see this new metric.
It’s unclear at this time if this new metric will be reflected in other creators or will remain limited to YouTube Music artists only.