That's your experience, doesn't mean it i ubiquitous. it also depends on how much competition there is, if lets say you are reviewing a movie, and other channels who have a clean channel upload a review for the same movie, they will get the push and you will not regardless of how amazing your videos are.
trust me, i know, shadowban is 100% real. i had two channels under one email, one was english, and the other was translating my content to a different language. both were doing amazing. the moment i got a strike for one channel, both channels followed the exact sam pattern, i went fro 300-1000 comments about 50, and my reach was so terrible. it used to say "this video is appealing to a smaller audience than usual" yet others in my niche will post a video of the exact same topic and get all the views, when prior to that, it was me.
And not only that, people will steal my title and thumbnails, and some will even steal my script, and get more views.
I knew 100% getting a strike negatively affects your channel because those who stole my scripts, after i warned them not to do it and they persisted, i gave them a strike, and their channels completely died off.