I consistently hear people on YouTube complain that the subscribe button doesn’t do anything for viewers, now that channel notifications are controlled by the bell. But it does do something: it puts the videos from that channel in your subscription feed, which is readily accessible on all versions of YouTube. So why do people act like it doesn’t exist? I think it’s super convenient, especially if you’re subscribed to a ton of channels and don’t want your notifications feed flooded with new videos.
I think most people sadly don’t use subscription feed. They just blindly watch whatever youtube algorithm throws at them.
I started with subscriptions and now I like both methods, they’re complementary. The algorithm is really good at suggesting either random stuff I like or new stuff I might like. And I subscribe for stuff I know I’ll want to watch no matter what. Works pretty well!
My bookmark is set to subscriptions page but yeh, when I run out of stuff to watch I’ll see what the algo has for me
It works though, most of my YT consumption is from the ATV feed of Smart Tube Next in my Shield TV home screen I barely ever access YT from my mobile or desktop.
And I have found good content there, I usually just skip annoying thumbnails, but even those can have good content, badly promoted ofc, so you never know what you will find there.