The tl;dw is that the most effective titles come right up against the edge of what an average target audience member would consider unacceptable on the axes of withheld information (to create a curiosity gap) and misleading sensationalism (to maximise the perceived importance of the topic); and you have to play the game of having effective titles because otherwise no one clicks on your video and it stops being recommended to people who would find it valuable.
I felt that this change reduced the quality of Veritasium, for me. I know it's just the titles, but it feels more bait and switch.
I understand why he did it, but wish he didn't. If I was a leader at YouTube I'd be pretty concerned about this - long term, it drives your platform in the direction of clickbait. Yeah there's benefits to that, but could also turn into a competitive weakness for YouTube. I think they should improve the recommender to make this unnecessary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xHZPH5Sng
The tl;dw is that the most effective titles come right up against the edge of what an average target audience member would consider unacceptable on the axes of withheld information (to create a curiosity gap) and misleading sensationalism (to maximise the perceived importance of the topic); and you have to play the game of having effective titles because otherwise no one clicks on your video and it stops being recommended to people who would find it valuable.