YouTube is willingly complicit in bot activity when it makes their stats look good. They don’t care about bot subscribers or comments as long as it drives engagement
And their Facebook/Twitter accounts have no meaningful engagement at all. 123 followers on Twitter, which is pathetic. Even I managed to get ~600 followers, mostly from when my blog ended up on the HN frontpage. I barely posted on Twitter. It's a massive discrepancy from their 6.3 million YouTube subscribers. Together with the view count rollercoaster, this does not smell kosher.
So it seems that a bad faith bullshitter who will abuse any system to bits to earn a buck is engaging in bad faith bullshit behaviour on account of being a bad faith bullshitter who will abuse any system to bits to earn a buck. I am shocked I tell you. Shocked!