Indeed, the reason they added the option was because of how many people were just putting their custom thumbnail as the middle frame of their video, which was jarring every time it happened.

As far as production value and drawing in the audience, I really don’t care. I would much rather just not see obnoxious shit no matter who it benefits. But that’s what happens when one website has an effective monopoly, people have to scratch out any advantage they can within the closed system because there just aren’t enough viewers to go around. At this point, what viewers click on is basically irrelevant anyway because we’ve crossed over the feedback loop point: because it used to drive engagement on its own, a pog face thumbnail is necessary because not having one gets your channel sent to Algorithmic Deprioritization Purgatory even faster than criticizing youtube on social media does.