Posted October 19, 2016
DaCostaBR: Watching a youtuber's videos is monetary support. Even you use adblock, you are still pumping his views and subscriber counts, which then translates into Youtube's algorithm favouring him, as well as helping him get paid advertisements.
It's not that simple. If you google "Do youtube views really matter?" "Do youtube subscriber count really matter?" and similar queries and research it comprehensively you'll find that pure view count and/or subscriber count does not really matter much, and that various other metrics are much more useful and used by advertisers. This was not always the case, but it surely is now. Part of the reason is that someone simply subscribing to a person's channel does not equate to the person actively following the channel nor engaging with the content, and advertisers know this. We've all seen campaigns where people involved in various social media out there reach out to their listeners/followers to get them to click on like or share, subscribe etc. aggressively, and to get others to do so as well. The problem is that many of the people who do actually click like, subscribe, share do not actively follow the person after that, and advertisers KNOW this, and it can be measured also.
Likewise, merely clicking "view" on a video and getting counted doesn't really mean much either. People watch all kinds of videos, both those they enjoy and agree with, and those they don't enjoy nor agree with, and may watch one of someone's videos and never watch them again. Views on a video isn't real engagement.
Advertisers nowadays are looking for engagement, and casual views and like-bait/share-bait marketing of a channel etc. doesn't do anything to increase real engagement so advertisers are less likely to reward such personalities monetarily. They have to work much harder to earn nowadays than cutting corners merely by getting people to jam the like/share/subscribe button and the smart ones out there who have done their homework know this. There are literally hundreds of "howto" videos on youtube by the real pros out there who have learned this over time and share their insight on how it all works, and to not get caught up in cutting corners trying to game the system with view or subscriber counts because they're relatively meaningless.
So if you watch a random person's video(s) from time to time and have no real engagement with them, you're not really contributing in any material way to their profitability.