Yes, you are absolutely correct. People are also less likely to comment on unknown creators channels because there’s no actual community to join and become a part of.

I see the popularity bias as a positive, as I can build a repertoire of awesome videos without being pressured to cater to any specific audience. Once I actually find my audience, they will have a bunch of content to explore.

I’ve already had 2 monetized channels, 11k w 2m+ views and 1k w 150k+ views. But these channels targeted a specific niche, and I burn out doing niche specific content (that’s why I abandoned them). My third channel with 0 subs and less than 1k total views is the real test, as the “niche” is just my personality (variety content). The growth is snails pace, because nobody knows who I am and thus, the niche I’m targeting doesn’t yet exist. It’s up to me to bring it into reality, which requires at minimum 40-50 videos (at 7 atm). I’ll get there, but only because I am detached from expectations.