Yes, many prominent youtubers are pretty explicit about how they’re not happy with it, but tweaking thumbnails and titles gives an actual boost to their videos

Yes, many prominent youtubers are pretty explicit about how they’re not happy with it, but tweaking thumbnails and titles gives an actual boost to their videos that doesn’t just translate to people clicking, but actual views and “engagement” throughout their content. For this channel in particular, the calculation might be different because of the type of content, and in particular the complete lack of temporality. Some videos from two to three years ago are probably still doing pretty well to new viewers discovering the channel, and I’d imagine it would be more difficult with dated types of thumbnails or titles that would make it look less evergreen.