What exactly does he have that could be worth putting up with the flaws to begin with? A loud voice that never shuts up?
Back in yesteryear, Phil wasn't a terrible choice to get playthroughs. He played the new AAA shit, like everybody else, in a timely manner and all the way through, like everybody else. In that market, most people still played on normal. The rug's kinda been pulled with most streamers choosing to play on Hardest nowadays, and to be fair, it's not like Normal would hold them back or provide any sort of challenge.
Out of the main gameplay guys Phil was also by far the fucking worst player, and a salty bitch, so his appeal wasn't as non-existant as it is today. Modern Phil has just removed himself from the market almost entirely. Want to see walking sims played by someone competent? MKIceAndFire's got your back, and he often gets early copies, destroying any need for Phil's product in an already oversaturated market. He also plays on PC and max graphical settings. Wanna watch salt factories? Weatherman and the like cover that niche, and actually play multi games, delivering a salt harvest that Phil denies his audience. Phil doesn't even play things he might be incompetent at any more, so there's no point in watching him for that, either. Every time he can, he just goes to games with no failstate. He still managed to kill off most of his House of Ashes squad, with only 2 survivors. It took him 14 hours to do a non-completionist run of a game where a completionist run takes 5 hours.
It's basically what Phil says. You're supposed to feel bad for him and give him money and get an emotional investment in him, but also not too much, because he's not your friend and he's never gonna be, and there's never gonna be anything more than a "Thank you" for your 300 dahller tip, and also you don't get to ask for a vest. So in short, the dentheads are a soft dad, and Phil's an ungrateful brat who keeps demanding more allowance in exchange for wearing the funny hat, and he also doesn't have to wear the funny hat if he doesn't feel like it.
In the end, it's just hardcore vetting, but it might be entirely unintentional. By doing this sort of shit, lengthening his already feature movie length prestream, aggressively begging, snorting and belching straight into the mic, Phil makes sure only the most dented of retards stick around. The sort of people who would give him money because they believe his lies. I would surmise that Phil knows his career is in the shitter and he'd never be able to be a regular streamer like Max Dood, but then he does shit like ultra clownmode and trying to riff on games with not a fucking hint of what could be funny, or his long almost scat fetish tirades of "toilet humor", which is SOMETHING to be fucking up, since it's a brand of humor ten year old kids can succesfully pull off... And it gets my noggin' joggin'. Maybe Phil trying to whitewash the fuck out of his streams and doing only things that he can't fail at are actually his attempt to hang up his bad boy gloves and go straight.
It's just he'll always want to have his cake and fuck it. He's the realest motherfucker on the internet, who tells it like it is, but also a good boy who will shill your game for you if you only give him the chance. He's an underdog, and a fighter who will never ever give up, but he's also a formerly partnered streamer with a 13 year begacy that has been running a succesful business. He's hated by the wider internet, but there's also a silent majority of enraptured fans who would do anything for him.
He'll never make it. There's just no magic Become Max Dood switch, no matter how hard he wants it, and he doesn't even want to put the work in. He might as well embrace the lolcow status, but his ego is too big to ever allow that.