From what I am seeing, this is far more used to get help and assistance to grow your channels. I don't think it is DIRECTLY used to just collect up views and subscribers but it for sure helps you create better content and strategy to grow your channels.
Also, I like having a community to talk to beyond comments on videos, so this is a nice place to do it. It shows the background stories of content creators that you might not get from just watching videos. It shows the human aspect.
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