[keyboardhitter]

So, will they also be screening the legitimacy of subscribers and watchers in those 12 month?

The first thing that came to my mind is that I can't imagine it is terribly difficult to purchase bot subscriptions. Their policy changes to focus on relevant watched hours in a set amount of time could, and probably will, open new demand for purchasing illegitimate traffic as well. Same game, different rules.

I wonder if this policy will be easier to spoof than pure views alone? Surely the risk has been evaluated by the policy makers but I am interested to see how things pan out, and what counter measures against bots/spam they may take as a result.

[Roverlord]

And the exchange of subs to boost both your counts and hit 1000. No doubt there will be auto player scripts emerging that will randomly watch 4000 hours of content by Friday.