Yes.

The video is still provided by youtube and they can simply take "note" at the time they are streaming out certain parts of the video and see how much percent were watched.

YouTube doesn't make public their view counting algorithm so that it can't be gamed, so it's anyone's guess.

Seems @Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de has tried this at some point, but maybe repeat rhe test in 2025?

• Upload a private/unlisted video to YT
• Watch once all the way through on YT
• Confirm count went up within 24 he's
• Watch on another platform
• Rinse, repeat.

I'm also curious if yt-dlp has an impact.

Most likely. Even if you aren't directly asking YouTube for the video, the other site does.

It depends. Newpipe definitely does, because it's a local client and uses your internet to watch the video. Invidious however can be configured to cache videos, which is useful on bigger instances where people watch the "top" videos. If a video is cached it will simply use the local video stream and not count a view.

So, it seems like not. Edit: But Actually, yes.

I just tested this by finding some random video about cheese with a low number of views (827 as I write this).

I watched the WHOLE DAMN THING. TWICE. Kidding, I love cheese, it was lovely. Both times I watched it via Invidious instances. It was 827 before, still 827 right now.

Edit: OK, looking now, it's up to 830. Dammit, have one of you all been watching my cheese video? I never watched it when I loaded it from YT direct. So there's 1 extra view.

Yes, it does.
I had the same question a while back and tested it with an obscure video I had published myself (20 views within 10 years or so....)

Views using Newpipe were counted.
But only once (when watching multiple times in a row).

Honestly no idea. It would depend if the views are counted from an api request or from amount of clients asking for the video. Newpipe Invidious and many other 3rd party frontends dont use youtubes api cause they would quickly be blocked and sued.

I feel like that's not how API's work.

Yes.