YouTube is a Spamfarm, Slopfarm, and Clickfarm (a Lot of Numbers There Are Fake)
Those who don't fake look unpopular and unimportant
I consider YouTube to be social control media based around multimedia, namely videos. I am rather sickened to see the clickbait, the low-quality shorts, the slop, and people who make videos by provoking members of the public (for reaction and "likes"). I am also sick and tired of "vloggers" who purchase pets they don't love just so that they can use their presence as "props" for videos' potential popularity. Some of them use young children similarly, not as mere status symbols but as props for "likes" or attention. They don't value their kids' privacy. At all! No dignity, no consent.
Recently Microsoft Lunduke decided to take on some well-known GNU/Linux vlogger, accusing him of using bots as fake "subscribers" with fake "engagement". As much as I detest the approach and motivations of Microsoft Lunduke, he was not wrong about that. But many "vloggers" justify doing this because "everyone else does it". The Linux Foundation even makes business out of it, paying the likes of SPAMnil to produce spam as YouTube videos. The views are about 95% fake, sometimes the interactions too. Some of it isn't slop but just automation (some got dubbed "clickfarms"). We did a number of videos that exposed the clickfraud of SPAMnil. It tarnishes the "Linux" brand and rewards cheats.
Anyway, it's true that many channels (or "vloggers") in YouTube fake their popularity. They pay some fee to the "black market" to help them do this, then sell their "content" based on false reach (numbers), then use the money gained to feed the "black market" some more. It's an ugly reality (a cycle of rogues) out there... █