I'm listening to a "Spaces" chat about this on Twitter right now, and I tend to disagree with the consensus, but I don't have a voice there.
As a viewer, who uses YouTube for educational/learning reasons, dislike ratio is really important for me to know whether I should or should not spend the hour or sometimes more to watch it, rather than go find something else which may be better.
The pessimist in me sees this as a way for YouTube to take away that knowledge you'd have up front, forcing you to watch a video (and the adverts it contains) before you can decide whether it was worth your time.
The pragmatist in me however believes that if we're going to remove dislike counts, we should remove like counts, but again, the pessimist sees this as something that wouldn't benefit YouTube.
Ultimately, given that people are being abused through the counter, I accept the removal of its utility and will probably just bounce out of videos that may or may not have been suitable much more quickly.
For the record, I believe I may have _clicked_ dislike, no more than a handful of times ever for really, truly poor "content".
As a viewer, who uses YouTube for educational/learning reasons, dislike ratio is really important for me to know whether I should or should not spend the hour or sometimes more to watch it, rather than go find something else which may be better.
The pessimist in me sees this as a way for YouTube to take away that knowledge you'd have up front, forcing you to watch a video (and the adverts it contains) before you can decide whether it was worth your time.
The pragmatist in me however believes that if we're going to remove dislike counts, we should remove like counts, but again, the pessimist sees this as something that wouldn't benefit YouTube.
Ultimately, given that people are being abused through the counter, I accept the removal of its utility and will probably just bounce out of videos that may or may not have been suitable much more quickly.
For the record, I believe I may have _clicked_ dislike, no more than a handful of times ever for really, truly poor "content".