Paid promotion vs organic cold-start: which contaminates less

Paid promotion vs organic cold-start: which contaminates less
Sources say the 'just run a small ad to kickstart the algorithm' trick backfires more than the ad reps admit.
— Paid views train YouTube on an audience you bought, not your organic niche — the system then suggests you to those wrong viewers
— Organic cold-start is slower but every impression is a clean signal the browse engine can actually learn from
The nuance a media buyer told me: in-stream ads pollute worse than in-feed discovery ads, because in-feed at least requires a real click intent.
Confidence: medium-high. For a channel like yours: if you must pay, buy discovery placement, never skippable in-stream, and never to 'prove' a video to the algorithm.