I feel like this opinion is unpopular since, because of K-Pop's growth in the west, which does not use YouTube as its main streaming platform, we have seen fandoms shift their focus from Youtube to Spotify when it comes to streaming. It's not weird to see people dismiss Youtube views nowadays, even though groups get not-too-different daily streams in both platforms.
However, Youtube is still arguably the biggest streaming platform in several regions of the world, like South America or Asia. I think that Youtube views are representative of groups' popularity in these regions specifically, the same way that their performance on Spotify is closer to their popularity in the Western regions. For example, groups with a lot of following in SEA will gather a lot of views, like Blackpink, (G)I-DLE or even the BABYMONSTER content, while groups with larger following in the West, like New Jeans or Twice, will have way lower views on YouTube but high Spotify streams.
You can mention the buying views via ads on YouTube, but the same can be applied to buying playlisting on Spotify, so that evens things out. You can check how many views are real (not ads) on YouTube and how many playlisting a song receives on Spotify.
It's become normalized to see fandoms disregard YouTube views completely and act as if those streams were not as valid as Spotify streams, especially coming from fandoms whose groups don't perform as well on the platform. It's kinda unfair and a very Westernized point of view, not to take into account the main platform of these regions, YouTube, when considering the popularity or success of a group.
source: https://www.reddit.com/r/unpop…portant_platform_in_kpop/