YouTube Shorts have moved from experiment to cash driver, with Alphabet’s Q3 2025 results showing the platform pulled in $10.3 billion in advertising revenue and Shorts earning more revenue per watch hour in the U.S. than traditional in-stream videos.
Google’s leaders laid the change out plainly during the earnings call. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said, “In the U.S., Shorts now earn more revenue per watch hour than traditional in-stream on YouTube.” That shift follows a period of heavy investment in short-form tools and discovery, and it helps explain why Shorts now average roughly 200 billion views a day.
The practical result is simple and a little brutal: creators who want steady ad income have a stronger incentive to post Shorts. Platforms and creators already chasing high view velocity are likely to double down on clips that hook viewers quickly rather than long-form uploads that need more time to build an audience.
For viewers who come to YouTube for longer, in-depth videos, this will be frustrating. Many users voiced their frustration earlier in 2025 and asked for Shorts to be split into its own app. YouTube publicly acknowledged those concerns and said it passed feedback to product teams, but the economics are now leaning the other way.
Big creators are already feeling the effects. Shorts have boosted total viewership for several top channels, and several creators see Clips outperforming their main videos in raw views and reach. At the same time, platform-level trends, such as the advertising mix and watch-hour monetization, will change which content is prioritized by recommendation algorithms.
We put the platform-side policy in context earlier when we covered how YouTube is tightening gambling and violent content rules, which matters because shifting formats plus policy tweaks can change which creators keep steady revenue streams. Creators who prefer long-form work now face a choice – adapt to shorter clips, lean on subscriptions and memberships, or double down on niche audiences who still watch lengthy uploads. Expect more experimentation as channels hunt for reliable monetization.
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