Heads up, Creators: On Dec 13-14 you may see a noticeable decrease in your sub count as we remove spam subscriptions. If spam is removed, you'll see a YouTube Studio alert: https://goo.gl/qGDBvX This should help give you confidence that the subs you do have are real fans!
I'm not saying they have to work less than big YouTubers (I'd argue they have to work harder if they actually care about their craft). I'm just saying that YouTube should work on helping those people who're working harder get found by other people.