For those interested....
 
http://productionadvice.co.uk/youtube-loudness/

Great article there on YouTube normalization. Thanks, Larry.
 
This is indeed a big deal, because so many people discover new music on YouTube nowadays, perhaps more than do through radio. If everything's playing back at -13 LUFS now, that means anything mastered hotter than that is automatically getting turned down. A "loud" recording with an average RMS of -4 dB won't sound loud at all, just dull and boring. It makes sense, then, to adopt -13 LUFS or K-14 (or lower) as your target if you want listeners to hear your recording on YouTube the way you intended. 

As long as the ads still come in louder, I am holding my applause. Kids listen to loud music because kids love loud music and not because they love overcompressed songs. The Who earned the title of world's loudest band long before the loudness wars. The problem with the loudness wars is shrinking dynamic range in music and the higher perceived loudness difference between advertisements and actual programming. Youtube's actions do nothing to change this. Throwing a leveler on an overcompressed song just ads another layer of compression on top of a song already lacking dynamic range and those who want it loud are still going to turn it up to desired listening level. These songs are still just as squashed and possibly more withiut changing how anyone listens to music. Kids are used to video volumes varying so they are going to jack up sound anyway. The only way the, imho misnamed, loudness wars is if mastering houses find it in their best business interests to change. It is rare when I find. A client who complains something is mixed too loud or lacks dynamic range. In fact, it is usually the opposite. I often find myself having to defend ads clients claim are too quiet by informing them it is actually the other ads are too loud. I suppose the youtube change does give me a scapegoat to blame if they percieve mix is not loud enough.

If you go down to the comments section you will find that not everyone is taking this guys finding the same way. Some are saying that youtube is doing nothing and that the playlist the guy analyzed might just be an anomaly.