No, We Don't Want to Go "Viral" (and You Probably Don't, Either)
The Web - or the Net as a whole - should not be a "popularity contest" or anything like a "beautify-your-flesh pageant". TV shouldn't either. That's why public funding for national broadcasters exists (TV, radio etc.). This way they can focus on public service, shouldered by quality, accuracy etc. They can be rated not based on ads or number of viewers (more viewers of something that is false is not an accomplishment).
We wrote quite a lot of articles about social control media lately and Digg is in the news again. People ask in IRC about "hacker" [sic] "news" [sic] - perhaps assuming that we want to be "in" it (we don't; we made several videos to explain why).
Social control media represents a bulk of mostly unwanted and sometimes offensive/hostile crowds; that tends to lead to a nuisance, not anything objectively gratifying. Remember we're not a shop that sells something. We don't need "more clients" or "more visitors".
Articles aren't to be measured by the number of words in them (LLMs can produce many words; those are not worth reading). Sites should not be measures in terms of traffic but perhaps weights like "impact". Top journals like Nature don't sell as many copies (or reach as many readers) as the Washington Post (a Jeff Bezos-owned "journal of record" that's now controlled entirely by Bezos to spread his ideology and business/political interests). But that does not mean that Nature and other top-notch journals are "less successful".
If you want a lot of traffic, then maybe put nudes on the Web or do something very dangerous (so that people cannot look away). Sort of like Jackass (MTV). You might become "famous" or "go viral". But that's just the mindless mindset of "influencers" in toxic hubs like the autocratic Fentanylware (TikTok).
Doing a good job isn't the same as earning a lot of money and quality isn't proportional to audience size. Over time, however, high-quality work can endure. "Viral" junk gets forgotten quickly.
It should be noted that Jeff Geerling, despite blogging in his own site, outsourced way too much to Google (YouTube) and he is probably way too late to realise what Google really is and was probably all along (Google was picking up all the harvest while Geerling was plowing for years, even decades).
An associate says "he might be able to set something up and gather his audience before his YouTube account gets banned for "linux" [like in Facebook]".
Quoting the "influencer" Mr. Geerling: "I've published 500 videos in 18 years on my YouTube channel. It was different back in 2006, when I moved from Google Videos over to YouTube. Monetization wasn't a thing, and we all just posted video online for the fun of it. Fast forward to today, and it seems like AI slop is set to take over the entire platform, proving the Dead Internet Theory right. You have AI videos with AI bots watching and commenting, and YouTube enables it by plastering unskippable ads everywhere! They make money, AI farms make money, everyone's happy! ...except for you and me. They took away dislikes, so we lost one of the best signals for avoiding slop. And then they push shorts and products so much, it's harder for creators who want to do things with intentionality."
Well, make a move. Forgot about audience size; focus on controlling your own platform. The rest can and probably will follow. Your fans will also follow. Advertise an RSS feed, not some "channel" in a site that treats you like cattle. █
Impact looks like this: (not heavy video)
Maybe spend more of your limited time (health problems) on your blog, not YouTube.