I think part of the appeal is "the storyline"....people want to see if he'll "crash and burn" or "make this big goal". He's entertaining and has a unique story/angle and films his own stuff so I respect that.
It's maybe kinda parallel to the rise in popularity and "clickbait" that a guy like Truett Hanes has (although Hanes was already a nepo baby). The audience is intrigued and curious because of his big goal (sub 2:16:00) and want to believe in the journey so that they can dream of making the same kinds of improvements themselves. Now the Hanes audience is a bunch of hyrox and "hybrid athlete" types that don't realize how big a chasm it is to go from 2:29 to 2:16 is....but RTJ still has a pretty audacious goal of going 2:14 to sub 2:10 (it's way more possible though...and us more serious runners know that!). Maybe it's like the Allie O goal of making the Olympics in the steeple, or placing well in the Golden Trail series (and now Half Marathon PRs)?
If there's anything I've learned with social media (esp running Youtube) it's that the storyline is key. I'm just trying to stay relevant and "adapt with the times" (I'm old and slow now so that's not going well), but some of the best traction in content I got was my OTQ series: (I missed the 2016 trials by 12 seconds and the 2020 trials by 52 seconds). But you have to keep in mind this was way after I'd already started Youtube and already run 2:16:52 and run in a couple Olympic Trials (also keep in mind this was before "supershoes"!). And there were certainly way less Americans running 2:16 or faster back then.
That Hugo guy made some very massive gains very quickly. I was shocked. It's interesting.... (side note imo SIS beta fuel is waaay better than Precision gels)....
I wouldn't compare RJT to him, but I do respect the "smart training" for "progression optimization". I first hand saw guys like Brian Sell run 160-miles a week. The thing with "high mileage, moderately hard training" is that if will either: 1. Hurt you, 2. Over-train you and/or 3. Make you super strong and fast....but only for a very limited time. Personally I ran way better off of 120-mile weeks than I did off of 140-mile weeks. The other thing of course is to mix in 5k-10km races and season focus (or at least a half marathon PR training focus) between marathons within the year imo.
I'd do a training consultation with RJT!