I think channels that want their videos ranked highly on-platform, e.g. the kind of content that tries to make it to the front / trending page of YouTube, do ne

I think channels that want their videos ranked highly on-platform, e.g. the kind of content that tries to make it to the front / trending page of YouTube, do need to play this game. Or in competitive categories, such as Lets Plays of popular games. The McDonald's of videos, basically. There's a different category of channel, the sorts of channels that focus on niche content, and have videos that would be long enough to qualify for midroll ad (which improves ranking) anyways, and/or the channels don't care about getting on the Trending page. It seems these sorts of channels depend more on being shared in external communities. They tend to be run by people who self-fund the operation out of love, and do it as a hobby / side-gig, or have something like a Patreon.