On the other hand, while I didn't follow Tom Scott particularly closely, I always enjoyed his stuff, and when I learned that he called it quits, I was legitimately happy for him AND his followers -- better to quit while you're ahead than to wear out your welcome.
tldw You're basically forced to structure your thumbnails and titles that way if you want your videos to actually be seen. Blame YouTube's recommendation algorithm, not the creators.
I think this is a major issue with so much of the "creator community". When you make this thing your job, you can't just not show up to work for a few months at a time. But, if your content is "information regurgitation", like reading health studies and reporting them to your audience, is there really enough out there to make it a full time job? Doubtful. So, you'll end up either rehashing yourself over and over (your viewers will get bored and leave), or start going to the fringes of your field where there is far less basis for your statements than what originally brought your audience in.
> You can see this pattern in people who exercise only with some combination of pre-workout, caffeine, music, phone scrolling
Where do you see this pattern? I would wager nowhere, even if it sounds like it "could" happen. I've worked out with a lot of people. I listen to music while working out, as do many people. I would enjoy working out less without it. But I'm not in some Dopamine spiral where I need to stack more stuff on top just to keep working out. I've been doing it for years.
I've noticed a lot of health influencers like Huberman, who need to make content frequently, have been honing in on gut-feeling conclusions derived from novice science facts you can expect anyone to know about. He casts a wide net with a Psychology Today level concept, and he builds an audience of people that can't separate the lazy conclusions he makes from the objectively true but elementary facts he bases them on.
Look at the comments, where people are accusing each other of being dopamine hijacked because they eat and read at the same time. Give me a break. Your reward system is not a fragile thing that is easily broken. The actual causes of dopamine hijacking are things like spending all day playing video games, not having a coffee before working out.