How to Read Creator Metrics Without Being Misled
Followers, subscribers, monthly listeners, likes and upvotes measure different things. This guide shows how to compare them honestly.
Most creator lists show one big number per person. That number is usually a follower or subscriber count. Put two of them side by side and they look comparable. Often they are not.
Five kinds of number you will meet
| Platform type | Typical number | What it actually counts |
|---|---|---|
| YouTube | Subscribers | Accounts that subscribed to the channel |
| X and LinkedIn | Followers | Accounts that follow the profile; LinkedIn counts are not always public |
| Podcasts | Monthly listeners (a range) | An estimated audience band, not an exact count |
| note and Medium | Followers, likes, views | Platform-specific signals, not equal to reach |
| Zhihu and Jianshu | Upvotes, subscriptions, word counts | Engagement inside the site, varies by column |
Three checks before you compare two creators
- Compare the same kind of number. Follower against follower, subscriber against subscriber.
- Use one snapshot date for both. A count from one month and a count from another month are not a fair pair.
- Name the source. A number from a public directory is a third-party estimate until you check the platform itself.
A Medium example
TDS Archive shows about 828K followers on its public Medium page, and the report found that its last post was in 2025. A reader who sorted only by followers would put it near the top of a list. A reader who checked the last-post date would see that the feed has stopped. Both facts are true, and only the second one matters for choosing what to read this week.
Where the report disagrees with itself
Two LinkedIn numbers appear in the report for two different people. One list gives Steve Nouri more than 2M followers. Another public list gives Pascal Bornet about 1.5M. Neither number is wrong for its own source and date. They are simply not a like-for-like ranking. This is why the report keeps the source column next to every count.
What we do on BestAINews
- Every count on this site carries its source and date.
- We do not convert one metric into another.
- When a number is not public, we write “not public” instead of estimating it.