Audience capture

Feedback loops make this easy to walk into. One video about a subject performs, the comments ask for more of it, the next performs better, and a year later the channel is about something its owner never chose. Milder versions show up as opinions hardening because the audience cheers them, or a persona getting a little louder every upload.

Nobody sets out to do it, and the pull is strongest where the numbers come back fastest. The cost is a catalogue you cannot steer away from without being punished by the people who came for the old version. Deciding early what the channel will never become is most of the defence.