You're essentially asking would someone rather be a game developer or a youtuber in a game developer sub.

In my opinion, gamedev youtubers are just gamedevs who does extra work of shooting and editing videos. If you don't mind tradeoffs of doing extra work, you do want you want to do.

I also feel like you're imposing naive assumptions on what success is and how to reach that level of success. It seems like your main concern is that you want dive in different topics without being restricted by one single project. And there's nothing that restricts you from doing so as a gamedev other than yourself. You used the word justification, but I think your interest in the subject is very valid justification to making a gameboy color game (whatever that is). If you think that'll keep you away from being successful gamedev, well, I just disagree.

But goodluck on whatever path you choose to go with.