You might think, not unreasonably, that if you post something really good to YouTube (quantifiably better than the top viewed comparable video) you will get ranked higher and knock the competition off the top spot.
It just doesn't work like that.
If social media success worked on merit then you would see the best of your own content at the top of your other channel content.
It doesn't work on merit. It doesn’t work on individual content, which is as weird as it is unfair.
YouTube does have the capacity to make judgements about content. They've age restricted some of mine that have just a couple of views. But it's inconsistent and flawed. Other videos of mine I judge to have more adult content get missed. Just look at all the misinformation they struggle with. Ai does not come close to what a real human can assess.
I speculate YouTube simply can't rate all the content that is uploaded with Ai, nor can they rely on users. It would require way more people consuming content than they have.
So, they fudge it, they rate channels. You are ranked not on what you uploaded now but how well your other content performed historically.
Essentially a popularity contest.
Some great stuff does rise to prominence, I’ll concede that. All musicians love Rick Beato and we want to see his new video because we expect a certain standard. We've subscribed to his channel so that's a good indicator for YouTube, but lazy when it doesn't curate his new videos to our targeted interests. It's a scattergun and that limits our choices.
There simply aren’t enough new thumbnails presented to users when you're scrolling for something to entertain you to allow unknown channels and exceptional new videos in.
This is a con job. Millions of people are wasting their time trying to be YouTube 'creators', working hard, learning their craft, buying the hardware and software needed.
Think about it, an army of talent you pay nothing for! What a business model. No, I don't care that it's free, YouTube you should be paying me.
Not everyone can be a star I get that. No one gets 15 minutes of fame either. But let’s call it out - cream does not rise to the top,
It's like every other media platform, they don't have to pay to commission content because they know we, as humans, are so desperate to be loved, liked, and subscribed we work for nothing. They don't take the financial risk, you do.
That is scandalous.
Without reward it is fraud, dangling success they know will never be delivered. It is stealing intellectual property, though they will have hidden clauses where you sign your rights away when you upload. Disgusting.