Yet he broke 50k subscribers on March 16 and he's at 51,798 as I write this comment. It's almost like you can say anything you want on Reddit.
My point was a very specific one, which is that a lot of longtime viewers who heavily engaged with his content (e.g. posted at length on the subreddit) seem to have walked away from engaging or perhaps subscribing at all. I think that's damaging even if his viewer count doesn't tank, which is why I gave a specific example of how it could hurt a channel.
On the contrary - a large number of them had little or no history on the subreddit and it reeked of a bizarre form of astroturfing with plenty of new accounts repeating very similar messages. To what end? No idea. He's popular enough that it is totally possible he had a number of subscribers that felt the need to join Reddit and speak out. But any long term fan would know Jon's opinions on such things. So if anything, they weren't the most engaging of fans and "no harm done".
Mostly smelled of rotten fish to me.
I'm sure many of his casual viewers won't care (or even know), but spaces like his subreddit have a lot of people condemning him and saying they're done with his channel. That's the sort of thing that can eventually eat away at content quality by breaking your relationship with bigger fans - think of how Many A True Nerd depends on subreddit feedback to fix mistakes and guide playthroughs.