Trading subscriptions on Youtube - Worth it?

[Sexbad]

A while back I did a game giveaway on my own channel and, among other requirements to win, I told everyone to subscribe. I got something like ninety new subscribers in about a week, which was an unprecedented rate for me, but soon enough I realized it was a really fucking empty victory. Having subscribers is nice because it means that somebody somewhere probably cares about your videos, but your actual subscriber count is a worthless number. I was actually glad when I made a video that ended up pissing about thirty of them off.

It's much more rewarding to end up with a handful of interested viewers who don't force themselves to subscribe in any way--you may even make some good new friends like that--than to shoehorn in your own popularity.