I consistently hear people on YouTube complain that the subscribe button doesn’t do anything for viewers, now that channel notifications are controlled by the bell. But it does do something: it puts the videos from that channel in your subscription feed, which is readily accessible on all versions of YouTube. So why do people act like it doesn’t exist? I think it’s super convenient, especially if you’re subscribed to a ton of channels and don’t want your notifications feed flooded with new videos.
I use the suscription feed, when I’m no longer interested in a channel I unsub and move it to my bookmarks so that I can keep track of it if I want to check it or even sub again for some reason. This way I have 2 feeds: a slow one (subscription feed) which I check daily and the home feed where the algorithm might recommend me something interesting if I want something else to watch. I might check that one many times a day or sometimes not check it for weeks or even months at a time.
I sometimes also unsub from channels I would like to keep being subbed too but they are just too spammy (e.g. Northernlion would just clutter my sub feed so I moved him to bookmarks and I still check him a couple of times a week).
As for the bell I don’t use it because I don’t like notifications for most things.