Why do YouTube views freeze at 301?

From the GitHub issue it becomes clear that blocking happens by the EasyPrivacy blocklist. The blocked URL youtube.com/api/stats/atr is/can also be used for tracking users, this is why some are arguing that it legitimately on that blocklist. The tracking not malicious. YouTube has a legitimate interest to verify views, e.g. to recommend popular videos to others. If a view counter was increased by just invoking an API, view counts could be manipulated easily. Also see the video [1] from ... 13 years ago ... so it might be slighly outdated. Just slightly. [1] ▶ this video

You probably think of Numberphile explanation of why YouTube videos (used to) stay at 301 views for a while - leading to lots of confusion when the site showed 301 views with 5728 comments and 37592 likes. ▶ this video

It may be related to the famous 301 view count where YouTube would stop updating the total pending further verification that the views are legitimate. See: ▶ this video This behavior was later removed in 2015, but I wouldn’t be surprised if something similar is happening here.

Or, someone at youtube saw the video and thought it was cool. Like how this video will always have 301 views: ▶ this video

There's a good reason for it, and usually is a sign that the video is immensely popular. You can find out why on Youtube it self: ▶ this video

They cache view counts heavily on highly viewed videos for validating views, here's a good video on why it happens (with information from Youtube -- the 301 refers to the first point at which video views stop incrementing in real time): ▶ this video