Also, for the record I don't actually have a Youtube channel to subscribe to the Bitcointalk channel, but I'll absolutely be contributing with views
.
If you think you have to do that in order to be successful on Youtube, you're just following the crowd and aren't thinking of a new, better, or original way to do things.
You're right that if you do fall into the trap of following everyone else you aren't being creative, and just following the crowd. However, there's a crowd for a reason. Individuality, doesn't exactly gain you anything when it comes to marketing, because your not catering for yourself, your catering for the
mindless masses that'll consume your content. I only use mindless because a lot of the people accepting this type of delivery are quite often unaware, and just used to it. After all they've been brought up in a marketing centric world. Though, having said that I've definitely become more accepting of clickbait, and marketing techniques on Youtube albeit I don't watch much content there at all, mainly for the reasons already mentioned by yourself, and because I'm not a big fan of just watching content for the sake of it, when I could be doing something else.
However, I'm only really accepting of clickbait when it's for less serious matters. My point before mainly was that I've become more accepting of it, but I didn't really give a good enough reason to when, and why I'm more accepting of it, which hopefully this reply will somewhat clear that up a little bit. For a short answer; am I a fan of clickbaiting? Absolutely not. Do I tolerate it? Yes, to some degree on certain platforms, and depending on the type of content it's aimed at.
The culture has shifted, but that has absolutely nothing to do with why clickbait thumbnails/descriptions are effective. When you boil it down, it's nothing more than sensationalism, and that's been around for as long as publication has existed.
So what about the people (like me) who see right through that crap and are in fact sick of it? Where does that leave people who stopped clicking on Buzzfeed's ubiquitous and nonsensical advertisements a long time ago? I know I'm not the only one. If you watch videos on Youtube long enough and have half a brain, you'll figure out that these video makers are manipulating you with tactics that are akin to blowing a bubble in a baby's face and expecting them to say "Goo Goooo!!".
I'm not having any of it anymore, and I'm at the point where I refuse to click on any videos with thumbnails like those in the thread I created in Bitcoin Discussion. If you think you have to do that in order to be successful on Youtube, you're just following the crowd and aren't thinking of a new, better, or original way to do things.
That's my point, that the culture has shifted drastically over the years. For the record, I always find myself complaining about the clickbait nature of Youtube videos, but even more so when it's news clickbaiting. However, I've come to the point of acceptance with Youtube, I understand that's marketing at the end of the day, and if you were not to partake in it, you'd ultimately lose potential viewers. Obviously, I don't have a Youtube channel, however I find it hard to criticise when literally everyone is doing it.
Although, I do absolutely draw the line at news clickbaiting. That to me is unacceptable, and if you are a Youtube channel that is delivering news, then I would feel the same way. I also avoid clickbait titles when it comes to news related articles, and will look for a less clickbait title elsewhere. Though, you ask what about people like us who avoid that type of clickbait? Well, we are what would be called outliers, and statistically speaking if you are looking to reach as big as an audience that you can, then you aren't going to cater for the outliers your going to cater for those that bring in the money.
Clickbait isn't something revolutionary or new at all. It has been around for as long as you can imagine, if you look at old newspapers from back in the 40/50s you'll see clickbait. It's just that the culture now with the internet becoming mainstream, and the nature of the content delivery clickbait has become a expected thing to do, rather than something that once was considered innovative in marketing.
Also, I believe click baiting is absolutely effective, and there is a reason why literally everyone uses it. I often see people believing the news based on its title, instead of the actual content. We're in a weird situation where people haven't got the time to fact check, and they form their opinions based on little snippets of information, and of course I am generalising here, because there is obviously those that put in the research, but if you go to any sort of major news source, you'll see quite evidently they use clickbait to push certain opinions onto its users. I for one don't like most news sources, I used to believe the BBC were at least a little bit better than most news sources, but recently I've caught them using the exact same tactics likely because they've been feeling the pressure to generate more clicks.
I know I'm not the only one. If you watch videos on Youtube long enough and have half a brain, you'll figure out that these video makers are manipulating you with tactics that are akin to blowing a bubble in a baby's face and expecting them to say "Goo Goooo!!".
My Youtube consumption is extremely low compared to most people. I don't even have a Youtube account where I subscribe to channels I like. I just visit probably 3/4 channels that I watch every so often, I don't even watch all of their videos, just when I feel like it. However, your point here
applies to literally everything these days, you're being manipulated in multiple ways of everything you watch, and see. We are literally in a ad apocalypse, because where ever you look you'll see adverts upon adverts. I can't even watch some UFC these days without adverts appearing over the feed. It's absolutely ridiculous, of course for internet based adverts we have things like Pihole, and ad blockers as extensions, but Youtubers have now resorted to advertising in their video itself, which no ad blocker can effectively remove. I've literally seen videos where the product they are advertising is longer in duration than the actual content itself.
The Bitcointalk channel should have some better thumbnails and it can have some clickbait titles to some extent which will not be problematic actually because the audience will get the requisite knowledge for the same purpose for which video was uploaded unlike those channels who put such thumbnail and have nothing in the name of content and usually waste time in channel and fake promotion.If you have some clickbait titles as promotional technique then the video should be of that quality also.
Professionally done thumbnails are always nice, but I'm actually a fan of content over production. If your content is worthy of watching, but your production lets you down, then I'm not going to stop watching. If your production is amazing, yet the content is dry, or doesn't really bring anything to the table, I'm not going to be that interested. Though, this is where the outliers come in; I'm probably considered an outlier from that perspective, there is plenty of examples out there who are much more successful than me, that have rather poor quality content, but amazing production value.
Usually when we hear things like 1 Bitcoin=1 Bitcoin, people only say that when it favors them. When it's time to spend that 1 Bitcoin, it's a completely different story. 
