Frankly I wouldn't care at all if all of your over-produced thumbnail-bait disappeared overnight.
This isn't about "over-produced thumbnail-bait". This is about all high-quality media.
You mention Rick Beato. Do you really think Rick Beato sits down behind his laptop to edit his own videos? He has nearly 6 million subscribers and produces around 10 long-form videos per month. He has at the very least an editor (probably full-time) and a thumbnail designer (part-time), and I assume also a manager who sets up brand deals and contacts musicians for his interviews. He also records his videos on expensive cameras inside his well-lit studio, which also isn't cheap. It's very difficult to tell how much YouTube channels generate but I wouldn't be surprised if the Rick Beato channel is at this point a >$20K/month operation.
Edit: Also, do you really think Rick Beato making "The Secret Weapon Behind Dr Dre" or "The Real Reason Music is Getting Worse" is not clickbait? It's just clickbait, but for people like you. Part of good advertising is making people feel like they're not even being sold anything.
As a musician myself, and as someone who enjoys watching music and music theory content on YouTube, I can't stand watching Rick Beato because of stuff like this. There certainly are valid criticisms to be made against the music industry, but those videos are like 90% ridiculous cherry-picked comparisons and vague, superficial justifications. It's low-quality nostalgia-driven engagement bait that's optimizing for clicks and comments.
I really like this video by 12tone addressing Beato's schtick about modern music [0]. 12tone is an example of someone who I consider produces much higher quality content than Beato, and obviously puts a ton of time and effort into the videos (writing scripts, drawing the visuals, recording and editing, and making moderately-clickbaity titles and thumbnails). But I'd guess it's probably a one-person operation.
In comparison, Beato's channel strikes me as low-effort content (pick a topic and spend an hour talking unscripted in front of a camera) with a ton of money spent on production, editing, and algorithm hyper-optimization to maximize ROI. It's such a straightforward case of something that would not exist without YouTube's monetization system that it's rather ironic for the parent to use it as an example otherwise.
I find this to be very insightful.
I said above that Youtube itself created a generation that expects free videos, but it's also true that Youtube has created an industry that expect to make a living from their platform - to the extent that they literally cannot understand the point of view of the 'generation that expects free videos'.
There's obviously room for both since that's the world we live in, but it's interesting to see the two philosophically opposed 'bubbles' interacting with each other.
In any event, Rick Beato seems like a normal human being, albeit a somewhat goofy dad-rock oldie. 12Tone comes across as an aspie weirdo. I'd rather have more of the former.
The videos are heavily edited with many cuts. So, I'd guess the production process is "have him talk for an hour, then edit it down to a 10 minute YouTube video".
> In any event, Rick Beato seems like a normal human being, albeit a somewhat goofy dad-rock oldie. 12Tone comes across as an aspie weirdo. I'd rather have more of the former.
And that's...kind of the point I'm making? The amount of effort put into the content of Beato's videos is quite low, with probably a couple hours at most of time put into research, coming up with talking points, and recording. But a lot of effort is spent on production, in order to make content that feels relatable and punchy and palatable to a mass market. It's junk food, and junk food sells well.