The current size of YouTube is estimated at 13.325 billion videos. This figure was released by a well-known technologist and director of the Center for the Study of Civic Media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Ethan Zuckerman.

According to him, more than 4 billion videos were posted on YouTube in 2023 alone. This figure is updated every few weeks on tubestats.org.

The calculations were not easy. The fact is that the researchers could collect data on individual platforms, including X. Here, thanks to a special tool, they had access to data on 10 million posts every month.

However, the platform stopped providing free access to this API due to an update of the tool. Now, X offers to purchase access to the API at a very high price. At the same time, the amount of data received will be less than when it was free. This has led to the cancellation of a significant number of trials.

As for YouTube, it is more popular than X. However, there is no effective way to obtain the data that would allow for the necessary calculations. However, Ethan Zuckerman and other experts have developed their own method that allowed them to estimate the size of YouTube.

The experts have collected a dataset that will allow them not only to count the number of videos but also to continue a more detailed study of the popular video hosting service.