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.
Maybe unrelated but what I do when I find a good channel: I click their name, go to their videos tab and look if there’s other good stuff. Often videos a bit older have very few views while the newer one has loads, which makes me think nobody ever clicks through all this.
But I also don’t log in to Youtube. I had a separate Youtube account until they forced me to use a Google account. I can always delete my YouTube cookies when the recommendations get to shitty.