Stupid question but as far as YouTube is concerned do total amount of views really count for anything? As far as I can tell watch time seems to be a much more important metric.
I get that view count DOES matter because more views=more watch time but to me it doesn't look like views is a metric that YouTube really cares about.
For instance if someone has thousands of view but people are only viewing their videos for 10 seconds on average they could actually be in worse standing than someone with hundreds of views but people are sticking around for 10+ minutes on average.
At least it seems that way to me.
I get that view count DOES matter because more views=more watch time but to me it doesn't look like views is a metric that YouTube really cares about.
For instance if someone has thousands of view but people are only viewing their videos for 10 seconds on average they could actually be in worse standing than someone with hundreds of views but people are sticking around for 10+ minutes on average.
At least it seems that way to me.