The Binge Effect
Platforms don't just want your video watched; they want the session it creates — creators who extend sessions get pushed.
How long viewers stay on the platform after finding you — feeds reward videos that start and extend sessions.
What it actually measures
The platform's real product is the session, so a video that pulls someone onto the app — or keeps them there after it ends — is worth more to the feed than its own watch time alone. Series, open loops that span videos, and endings that hand viewers a next step all bank session credit.
How to read it
- 1
Mostly read indirectly: what happens after your video ends? Do viewers hit another one of yours?
- 2
Playlists, series, and binge-able formats are the levers — the channel, not the video, is the unit being measured.
- 3
An ending that resolves everything and suggests nothing is a session leak.
- 4
Classic misread: optimizing every video as an island while the platform grades the archipelago.