I also think it’s important to remember that people don’t actually follow Veritasium directly. They follow him indirectly by means of YouTube. If people could actually follow him directly he wouldn’t need to worry about competing with AI crap for the attention of YouTube’s algorithm. But of course, YouTube would never allow that.

People can and do follow him directly: www.patreon.com/veritasium

His gaming of YT algorithms is about growing his viewership. This is true for basically all the largest YT and Twitch creators, who have to diversify their revenue streams off of just those platforms, in order to get truly large.