How the YouTube Algorithm Created Logan Paul

Some pragmatic takeaways:

1. 70% of time spent on YouTube comes from their own recommendations. They are governed by The Algorithm. The sidebar is perhaps the most noticeable way, but there some other places too where The Algorithm rules.
2. When it comes to recommendations, YouTube cares little about likes or subscriptions nowadays. So you can't fix them with those. I've been dutiful about dis/liking vids and won't be anymore.
3. A lot what makes viral YouTube sensations and popular content happen is that The Algorithm hits a tipping point where it's confident in it's knowledge enough to recommend videos to wider and wider audiences. So for content and channels that don't make it, the problem often is that TA hasn't had enough data about watches to connect it to its potential audience, but it could change overnight. It's machine epistemology, not necessarily anything to do with inherent quality.
4. A lot of general wisdom about YouTube success such as trend chasing, saying "pls like comment and subscribe" in every video quite possibly isn't really that important. People could be mistaking an effect for a cause, which is understandable as no-one really can see inside The Algorithm. If I had to recommend something, it might be to not mix genres when your platform is small. The Algorithm just gets confused if your audience consists of disjoint sets.
5. If you want YouTube recommendations to become better for everyone and you aren't above true slacktivism, start watching Breadtube videos and follow the creators on YouTube and other platforms. Alt right bullshit on YouTube derives from New Atheism scene and thus is Old so The Algorithm is biased towards it as there is a long history to datamine from. TA isn't very smart so basically the user base needs to teach it that being a gamer doesn't mean you're a Nazi. So puffing up good content and sharing it on social media could be p ok propaganda because one who controls recommendations controls who gets to see what.
6. YouTube and Alphabet totally aren't innocuous in this but it seems you need an enormous backlash and the threat of losing advertisers for them to do anything.
7. Watching Bad Videos poisons your recommendations so don't do that.