YT pressures content creators into doing all sorts of stupid shit. They are made to think they don't really have a choice unless they want to risk their monetisation.
One memorable particularity was YT prompting the content creators to make thumbnail images with grimacing faces, which IMO is cancerous. yt/user/theCodyReeder talked about it, but I cannot find the video any more, this was about two years ago.
When YouTube (actively or not) incentivizes that style of thumbnails you cant really blame the creators. I've heard something like 20% more viewers based solely on having a more "creative" thumbnail.
That's due to content creators, not YouTube.