A number of factors play into it. US summer is over. Natural disasters that potentially cut off whole states.
Also video topic saturation. How many places can you really tape your kids? And how many places can be flooded with lava? And how many kinder surprise eggs can you crack open? Thousands, hundreds of thousands, then it gets boring...
The revenue drops with the adpocalypse - one way to counter the effects is to make more videos. When the price drops, to make previous revenue levels, you have to dump more products at lower price into the market. Economic 101. If before 1M views made $1000, and now it makes $300 (taking into effect 10-30% of inventory doesn't run ads due to non advertiser friendly), to make that shortfall I have to release much more videos. The result is market saturation as everyone release more videos to make up for falling revenue.
Plus, the more exposure in mainstream media there is of "millionaire Ytbers" and the "Ytuber lifestyle" the more entrants there are. Just the other day there was a survey of what's the top job that kids in Australia want - the answer is to be a Ytuber.
Since kids at at our kids school are becoming aware we have a channel, many of her friends have opened channels. By rough estimates, about 20 new channels have been opened this year in kids toys as a result of what other kids see us do. Most in the 2nd grade my daughter is in, and some in prep for the younger one. Now take 1,000,000 kids toys youtube channels around the planet, and 10-30 of their friends open channels too, that's 10 - 30,000,000 new channels opened. Utter saturation. Sure, 99% of them will fail, but still.
So, views are down for many on recent videos, us included. But views are way way up for some, those who I call the A-list. They're the Steven Spielberg of video production. The B-listers (I consider about 100k-900k subs) are managing but concerned. A strong inventory cushions the blow. But that will not last forever. The C-list (below 100k), I see many struggling. We have 1 channel in that range, not very good. The D-list (under 1k), I would say forget it almost. We have 1 channel there, it's impossible without traffic redirection. Going is hard. It's only going to get harder.
Peace out