But at this time, the video only has 165,000 views. Unless we're really early and it's going to go viral and blow up to millions overnight... it seems like it was not the smartest of plans.

It’s not something I would do for a number of reasons.

In terms of cost effectiveness — that is, leaving out the ethics aspect — this gambit could make sense if he converts those views somewhere else in a sales funnel (not sure he has one). As a simple example, increasing his subscribers will likely raise the floor for his views of future videos. A more complex example might be using that video as a lead generator for a gofundme.

I haven’t really looked into the economics of this particular niche, but a savvy marketer could turn those views into additional money by using it as a feeder into a sales funnel of some sort.

He should have tried a bikini try on.

And, in any event, it compounds. Views are great, but subscribers are repeat viewers (and juice the algorithm).

So 100k new subscribers could be worth millions of views over a one year period.