TLDR*: I don't want to have to change my content format (talking head with infographics overlays) just because I know I could game the system by posting 'CURE FOUND FOR CANCER", then deliver platitudes about "eating healthy" because that's BS. My videos mean a lot to me and are a way to deal with loss. But i got no views.

There's no point posturing: I'm getting really frustrated with my current attempt at YouTube videos. I'm making informational videos about a disease that has tragically affected me, so because I don't want other people to go through the same, I'm providing information about how to handle finances, power of attorney, and I'm also providing detailed infographics, things of that nature.

When I started, I thought that YouTube was just one of the many tools available to me to spread awareness. It's only been a month but I work on this full-time and I live off my savings. What I've come to realize is that whatever I do outside of YouTube is essentially completely worthless: there doesn't seem to be any correlation between visits to my substack and YouTube videos.

YouTube is its own world where two metrics drive absolutely everything, click-through rate and average viewing duration. There are even entire channels dedicated to teach you how to abuse the system by creating clickbait titles and even inserting text that is too long to read, forcing people to rewind to read the text

Because of the subject matter of my videos, I find this completely disgusting. I would never do such a thing. And yet here we are. I've made 3 videos and I got a global wonderful 220 views. So I started writing longer form videos like little documentaries, but that takes weeks just for one video. In addition, the research needed on say, the subtypes of the disease before I can make ANY video in more detail on the topic means four or five days per script, and another week to animate the graphics.

Meanwhile, people like Beluga are clocking the highest growth on YouTube EVER for fake discord chats, and if you study it, you'll find that someone has discovered that they're gaming the algorithm while youtube rakes in the ad revenue.

Look, I don't want to be a star, and I don't even necessarily want millions of people to watch my videos, but having some form of viewership (say 5k) would keep me motivated because right now I'm questioning if what I do is even worth it!

If you have any advice on how to solve this sort of existential crisis I'm having I would be very appreciative. Thank you.