"Subscribers Don't Matter" Is a Really Dumb Sentiment

Can we put this discussion to rest for good?

First off, subscribers are social proof, making sponsors more likely to sponsor and viewers more likely to view.

Second off, subscribing to someone is a show of support. It means that you want to watch more of their videos. Sure, dead subs are a thing, but, for most creators who got their subs through legitimate means, subscribers are potential viewers that are significantly more likely to watch your videos than a non-sub is.

If you're getting consistently good views but not subscribers, it's probably because viewers don't like you/the videos you make, yet you're good at getting people's attention. You see this with commentary slop channels and grifters. Those non subs will watch you, but they probably aren't fans willing to genuinely support you in other endeavors. However, you can use your viewer/subscriber ratio to help determine what to improve.

Yes, subscribers matter less these days when it comes to having a breakout video, and yes, the almighty algorithm focuses less on pushing videos to subs these days, but ignoring the value of subscribers is delusional.

Edit: I'll add that recency of subscribers matters a lot. If you got 1 million subs like 5 years ago and haven't grown much since, no shit you're gonna have a lot of dead subs. If you're growing recently, then those new subs are likely fans of your current content and therefore likely to come back and watch new videos. Maybe the people who think subscribers are completely meaningless are older YouTubers that stopped growing long ago :D