T-Series And Its YouTube Sub-Count

In April of 2019, after a prolonged back and forth, the Bollywood Record Label, T-Series finally took over the spot of the most subscribed channel on YouTube dethroning controversial & notorious YouTuber, PewDiePie, real name Felix Kjellberg. As of now, T-Series sits on the YouTube throne with over 105 Million subscribers, but how they got there is a different story. The 'sub-count' battle between Felix and T-Series started somewhere around February 2019, but the red and bold T-Series logo has been a familiar image to almost every Indian for the most extended amount of time. Whether it was DVDs, Cassettes or Movie Posters, T-Series was and still is everywhere. However, 2019 was undoubtedly a game-changer for the conglomerate. Ever since the company got involved in this subscriber gaining competition, it managed to sneak a spot in news headlines all over the world, and that didn't just allow them to garner even more support at the home turf but also helped them earn some brand value outside of the country. Although on the surface, it might seem like a fair & square win, T-Series throughout the battle amassed accusations of using sub bots and other unfair means to gain subscribers. Now the question that arises is whether these accusations were true or not and while there are some ways to determine that, none of these methods can back up the results with solid proof. The most common way to do it is to go through the stats available on T-Series's SocialBlade profile, the world's most popular analytics website when it comes to gauging YouTube channel statistics. Looking at the yearly stats for the number of subscribers gained suggests that T-Series has been growing at a steadily-increasing rate with some sudden spikes. However, for these graphs to indicate that sub-bots were involved would imply that T-Series has been using such services for years rather than the last few months. That, however, is an improbable scenario since the use of such unfair means is strictly against the policies of YouTube and the Video platform would've noticed it during their thorough and regular audits. Some users and conspiracy theorists have even gone on to give the argument that YouTube interfered and rigged the battle by allowing T-Series to be automatically subscribed to, upon a fresh install of the YouTube app in some particular regions. Another theory that has been circulating in the interwebs suggests that YouTube used Click Farm services which mostly make fake users look like legitimate ones, but all of these theories seem too far-fetched and have already been debunked by numerous people and even some YouTubers. That being said, the fake subscribers/followers industry is massive. Just a quick google search, and you'll have the option to buy any amount of Instagram followers and YouTube subscribers. An emerging trend in this space is the option to purchase real subscribers allowing you to grow at an organic pace, which costs more and is very similar to the services offered by click farms. Unfortunately, this isn't the first time a large organization was accused of such infringements. In 2013, an Ex-YouTube employee who goes by the alias, 'spk' came forward to reveal that in 2009, he was requested to use his botnet, which is an army of hijacked electronic devices, to bot & increase the views on VEVO YouTube videos during the early days of the VEVO network. YouTube never commented on the accusations made. Services providing inorganic growth exist and are easily accessible to every other person using the internet but whether or not any of the accusations made against T-Series or YouTube are correct is a question that only YouTube can answer and since no one has come forward to confirm these allegations, it's safe to say these conspiracy theories are indeed mere conspiracies.