How does it fall under the definition of a bubble? Sure, view counts contribute to more views. But that's not the main retention mechanism of these videos.
I see it as a bubble because they don't have to pay anything to host or publish content even though there is a cost there (storage, streaming, etc..) so they're essentially hoping that YT can keep providing a free service with ads even if they're running at a loss.
It's not clear if YouTube is specifically profitable, because Alphabet only separates revenue, not profit. But, I would imagine they're not running huge margins or even at a loss given their recent crackdown on ad-blockers and Google's overall fight against them with things like manifest V3.
YouTube just generated over 8 billion in quarterly revenue. YouTube has been a bonafide business for content creators for ~15 years. Nothing about this says “bubble”.
It’s inevitable that every business changes with time. And on a long enough horizon collapse is inevitable. But that doesn’t make it a bubble.
