A few observations

About the web, and popularity of certain content on the web.  Let's take YouTube for instance.  If you have an account there, you can set it up so that when your page loads, it immediately begins playing a video.  This will count as a view even if the person clicking on it didn't really want to see it.  This pads the statistics, so to speak.

Alright, let's take my own YouTube page.  I don't believe in the above.  I have it set up so that anyone can click on whatever they like so that it is purely voluntary.  If there's nothing there that you want to see, you won't be forced into watching any of it.  I notice that a high percentage of people do not watch my videos when they come to my page.  But if someone looks at those kind of numbers first, they may conclude that my videos aren't any good.  So, they may be leaving on the basis of that alone.

This is a way to control interest, I would think.  If someone looks like they are unpopular, people may think there's a reason for it and then they just follow what everyone else is doing.  But is it right?  In my own case, I want to know if someone likes what I am producing.  This information tells me something, but what if others are doing it the other way?  What does it say about someone who gets 100% views to his page which in turn, are converted into views of his videos?  I hope I am making my point here.  I am trying to uncover a fallacy people may have about these popularity rankings.  Hopefully a little thought may show a way to resist the tendency to judge things on a really superficial statistic which can be manipulated.

Let's put it another way.  Can you be honest and succeed?  Do you have to cheat?  Or to stack the deck in your own favor, or have someone do it for you?