Maybe the one-number metric that matters on YouTube has a very strong component of how technically well the video was made.
Like, even if someone who “deserves it” makes technically great videos and gets tons of followers, most of them follow the channel for “wrong reasons”, that is, they would not have subscribed if the same content had lower technical quality. So if someone who “deserves it” makes technically crappy videos, they only get a few followers.
In other words, most people watch YouTube because they want some short funny visual experience. Not because they want to learn from world-class experts. Okay, maybe they watch something short funny visually attractive that allows them to pretend to themselves that they are doing it to learn.
That would kinda reduce your thesis to “the best at X frequently don’t rise to the top when Y matters”. The difficult part is figuring out what exactly it is that matters on YouTube (or on the market).
Maybe the one-number metric that matters on YouTube has a very strong component of how technically well the video was made.
Like, even if someone who “deserves it” makes technically great videos and gets tons of followers, most of them follow the channel for “wrong reasons”, that is, they would not have subscribed if the same content had lower technical quality. So if someone who “deserves it” makes technically crappy videos, they only get a few followers.
In other words, most people watch YouTube because they want some short funny visual experience. Not because they want to learn from world-class experts. Okay, maybe they watch something short funny visually attractive that allows them to pretend to themselves that they are doing it to learn.
That would kinda reduce your thesis to “the best at X frequently don’t rise to the top when Y matters”. The difficult part is figuring out what exactly it is that matters on YouTube (or on the market).