I didnt say any of that. You dont need to put words into my mouth to "win an argument".

I think it is reasonable to assume that most popular YTers are in a discord/telegram/whatsapp/text chain together. This is their community, so it makes sense to have a quick line of comms between them.

Just like how HN is a place for .. hackers to socialize, it is conceivable there's a $place where they meet and discuss inside-baseball stuff.

Okay, I am happy to hear that is not what you were implying; a bit extreme, but that's how I read your comments in light of the reality, taking the skepticism to its apparent conclusion. I genuinely did not intend to provide a straw man or to argue and apologize for doing so; I'm just not sure what else you were implying.

We know that large groups of YouTubers, particularly the "elite" ones, are in chats with each other, this is true. But the sheer variety of them talking about this from across different spaces on YouTube and different tiers makes it seem unlikely to me they are all in the same exclusive social space. I think we operate with different priors though.