Pilchard is probably right. Planning ahead, preferably way ahead, is probably how you play the game.
Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of people out there pantsing their way to success, but having your ducks lined up long before they go public is just easier. If something goes wrong, you can see it, adjust and correct for it. Even if you're going to be in a situation where you are trying to be first with content, that situation will rare. The normal is just going to be grinding content to try to keep people coming back to your content.
Being first probably isn't nearly as good a replay value, anyway. Replay value isn't as good as style (though "what style is" is hard to pin down). Better to be the 400th video on a topic that's number one in view count than to be the first video that's 400th in view count.
Youtube's method of tracking views is, itself, part of how you go from maybe viable to maybe viral, and from maybe viral to maybe vihart. And that system has a built in pause button. Brady at Numberphile talked to a google drone directly on the subject, and there's a point where Youtube stops upping your view count to be sure it's not foul play, and then starts adding views in drabs to make sure it's a real view (the second being less about fraud and more about making sure that the content was delivered). The point being, there's no big advantage to being quick to post content. Better results, long term, come from being regular, like a good fiber diet.
