I noticed this a few weeks ago. This is pathetic as its all thumbs up for crap uploads and ive seen loads especially of political views. Seriously this is manipulation.
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Haha no worries dude 
didn’t come across like that just wanted to make sure my commenta didn’t come off as a personal critique
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Think they removed the dislikes count due to far too many disliking J Biden videos.
Annoying as it stops you from knowing if a (tutorial or guide etc) video is worth watching.
I’d like to respectfully disagree with your position.
If art can only be liked, then that limits the scope of what can be considered art. Something so awful that it can only be disliked must be removed, otherwise shitlords will upvote it, and it will be mixed in with the ‘good’ stuff. But there is subjectively and objectively bad art, and our subjective reaction is often highly contextual and thus will change over time.
Art is more powerful if it can be ‘bad’ or even just unpleasant. A world where art can only be positive and uplifting is a world that has been lobotomized. On the other hand - the increasing disneyfication of youtube just creates opportunities for other services and of course IRL art installations.
Unfortunately, that line of reasoning inexorably leads to the position that plebes can’t appreciate and don’t deserve the full spectrum of art. That position makes me deeply uncomfortable.
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The political ones are dangerous. Of course you can just not watch them. But thats favouring the big streamers who have a win win here. Its just fueling their fire.
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well, that’s the Youtube guy explaining that they are getting rid of dislikes that said they would still be used to customized your recommendations:
Viewers can still dislike videos to tune their recommendations and privately share feedback with creators.
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Anyone remember youtube before likes and ads?
I do. It was better then.
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Art is subjective, I never judge what is shit or not and don’t feel the need to tell people : “hey, this is shit”. that’s not my role but you’re free to think otherwise too ; )
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I stand corrected. I thought I read they weren’t.
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FWIW, at a technical level, it has never been easier to build your own Youtube clone. There are huge challenges from a product marketing perspective, since Youtube so utterly dominates video.
Indeed what doesn’t fit the narrative of the day will be banned / cancelled / blocked and those who comply will get nothing but thumbs up … so especially in politics this is not a good evolution , cause the very essence of politics is comparing pro’s and con’s in any given situation . That said , i think it would be better they got rid of likes , dislikes , view counts and the comment section all together on those giant platforms and let it just be content . When i was a teenager watching , lets say , mtv , not once i felt the urge to write to artist x or y to tell them what i think of their music video , i just absorbed it , contemplated for while on it , and kept my thought (either positive or negative) for myself , no need for that little dopamine shot if someone agrees with me . At best i would have discussed the video with my best friend and at least that would have been a constructive discussion .
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2006 Google bought it for peanuts to them. Since then its got worse from a neutral standpoint.
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I’ve managed to curate my Youtube so that I rarely see things I truly hate, so I very rarely downvote anything. If antivax content showed up in my feed (for example), I would happily downvote it. But I would also argue that all antivax content is political art and objectively bad political art. I don’t like it, and I think it is deeply harmful to humanity. But I would go to some lengths to argue that it is, in fact, art.
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Party political broadcasters will have a field day for sure. Scrap comments on these as well as likes i agree.
Says who? What are the objective metrics of “bad art”?
I wholeheartedly disagree that the dislike button serves the purpose of sifting through the quality of content. I see videos with lots of dislikes that I personally like plenty and vice versa. It really doesn’t help me much.
I doubt it helps much with curation and with the algorithm either, apart from maybe making individual recommendations (“disliked this? You’ll probably dislike that too” — which is still possible also without the count revealed).
I dread a world where I’m not occasionally confronted with something that’s not in my immediate radius of knowing or appreciation and where I don’t get challenged in my preferences, orientations and beliefs from time to time.
I dislike YouTube’s algorithm at base also though, it’s way too conservative and designed to keep you watching rather than to risk a little in the process attempting to serve up something interesting.
I really don’t see how the dislike count serves a meaningful purpose on that platform.
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There needs to be a different platform for artists. Youtube can be left for just politics or meditation videos
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At some level, I largely agree. But Youtube’s “algorithm” is a moving target - constantly changing and evolving. Today perhaps downvotes are not useful. When things I don’t like come up in my feed, I have an opportunity to notify Google that I don’t want to see more of that content. That generally works.
The hill I would consider dying on is this: a platform that truly respects and honors art would be capable of accommodating positive and negative comments, including upvotes and downvotes. This is getting fairly abstract and disconnected from reality, so I won’t commit to dying on this hill tonight.
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Sitting on top of the blood-soaked hill under the shimmer of a black crescent moon, he collects his dying force to once more ponder the meaning of art and likes on youtube before finally, his last warm breath fleets his tired body, bringing relief and eternity upon his once radiant existence.
On his grave stone it will read “he died arguing YouTube.”
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That, fellow Elektronaut, is poetry. I may have to reconsider my position on hill-dying tonight. But probably just in my dreams, it’s been a busy day and I should get some rest.
Want to write the liner notes for my upcoming Lyra + Syntrx album? 
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Ugh, but why would you? It’s already a terrible idea.
I can’t watch youtube without seeing Brian Oblivion in my mind.
THE problem with youtube has got to be that it is impossible to regulate, and therefore inevitably a cesspool. Building a clone doesn’t solve that. Everything is too damn big and centralised. How did the internet end up the opposite of its promise?