Eventually, I found myself making videos to feed the algorithm not because it was a project that I …

Thank you for your story. I have been running a low traffic blog for decades now and there was a time when I craved engagement. I never put too much effort in but I did change the things I wrote about to try to get noticed, a strategy that was unmarred by success. The creators that find success need to pump out content at a ridiculous rate. It is a faustian bargain that sucks in a lot of people.

I had a hobby electronics channel that was getting quite popular (~30k subs after ~15 videos). I burned out for a different reason: it’s hard to do this as a side gig. If I could’ve done it full time I would’ve continued doing so, but YouTube just doesn’t pay you enough despite each video getting >100K views. I paid zero attention to the algorithm and just focused on creating unique, creative, high-quality content that showed a level of effort was put forth. This “side gig” burned me out. So it’s possible you would’ve burned out anyways, despite any algorithmic considerations.