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Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

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Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#361
post #9

This seems rather user-hostile. The downvote count is useful for identifying videos that aren't what they claim to be. And how about DIY videos that give terrible advice? A big downvote ratio will get most people's attention in a way that critical comments may not.

I disagree. Downvote just lets the mob bury shit they disagree with.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#364
And YouTube becomes even more useless to me. The LAST remaining use I have for YouTube (since it ceased to be entertaining by demonetizing all of my favorite creators to the point where they need to shill VPNs and underwear every 2 minutes) is to find tutorials and guides on how to do things I want to learn to do. Too bad I won't know when a guide is giving me bad advice, because there won't be a crowdsourced like/dislike ratio. Guess I'll have to go to Udemy or something.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#365

This is terrible and user hostile. How can I avoid bad content now? Why does YT care more about the feelings of a few super star creators than the user base?

I suspect that they're straight-up lying about it being "at the request of creators". I think they're just copying the Twitter model. Twitter became a powerhouse of pro-Trump fake news and single-handedly made qanon a thing. I guess YouTube wants in on that kind of cash flow.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#366
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For now, but if they keep treating users like shit, it creates a bigger and bigger opportunity for competition to pop in. You might be thinking it's super hard for someone like you or I to create a YouTube competitor. That's probably true, but what about Amazon or Netflix? Can you imagine if Netflix had a YouTube-like platform where, if you're a subscriber, you get no ads?

That's a good point. Who really knows, but possibly Google just doesn't see that coming, or at least not any time soon. A true competitor to YouTube would really do consumers and creators a lot of good though.

Seems like it should be a market inevitability. There are just so many things wrong with YouTube. The main obstacle is the bandwidth cost, and that's not an issue for any major tech company.

I think Facebook could actually properly compete with YouTube if they wanted, it's just that their insistence that you have to be logged in to access content makes it much less appealing as a platform, because you can't just link people to videos easily.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#367
There seem to be an awful lot of accounts here pushing the narrative - which seems to have come out of nowhere - that this is some kind of conspiracy to hide the number of dislikes on the White House's official Youtube channel. I guess someone wants us to believe there's some deep popular dissent and resentment against the Biden administration that they desperately want to have covered up.

Sorry gentlemen, it's a reach. Crippling senility didn't stick, pedophilia didn't stick, whatever Hunter Biden's laptop was supposed to be didn't stick, and this... is getting kind of desperate. I know you're gearing up for 2024 but please, find some better memes. Quality over quantity.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#368
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the worst solution except for every other we’ve ever tried.

There's plenty of other ways of figuring out if something is good. When you go to a restaurant do you just look at the star rating? Or do you read reviews, look at the menu, ask ppl etc

There aren't plenty of ways of quickly figuring out if a video is bad.

It's clear that people is this discussion are focused on different types of videos, and the varied responses to the removal of downvotes reflect this. I'm focused on board game videos, which are the only videos I watch. A large number of downvotes on a board game video indicate that the video includes major rules mistakes. So when I see many downvotes, I simply play another video. I'm not going to bother performing a thorough investigation of the quality of one board game video that has a lot of downvotes.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#369
post #134

It is interesting how YouTube seems to maintain the mainstream video moat. The only competitors that make any inroads are in sub-niches, like Twitch.

YouTube rode to the top by streaming petabytes of copyrighted material that would get anybody who tried to replicate their path destroyed by copyright strikes

This is actually true. I distinctly remember that about 50% of the videos I used to watch on YouTube made me think "better watch this before the copyright holder finds out it's here". Entire British TV shows, Japanese anime movies, stolen corporate training content, audiobooks, etc. Impossible to replicate the growth trajectory in a ContentID world.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#370
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me this sounds like, Right: Cancel culture is bad! Youtube: You're right, so we are removing downvotes! Right: NOOOOO!!! I want to downvote Biden videos and cancel him! It is a little silly. YouTube was removing the downvotes manually as "spam" anyway. Removing the button is just easier for them. The view count is much more telling. It seems like they'd have to pay out more ad money to artificially pump those numb…

The view count is much more telling. I don't agree. Many quality videos have low-no view counts because they are not promoted in any way or the persons making the video don't know how to do self-promotion. Downvotes are a signal about the percentage of people who watched something and disliked it, albeit an unreliable signal that can be gamed. If it were just about view counts, th rational thing would be to get rid o…

>Downvotes are a signal about the percentage of people who watched something and disliked it, albeit an unreliable signal that can be gamed.

I guess I just don't believe this. There's no gaming required. Youtube can and does adjust that number at will. It's not indicative of anything to me, anymore than a positive product review on Amazon is indicative of anything to me. Follower counts mean nothing. Likes mean nothing. I think most of us who write code here know the game is rigged in every way imaginable. Even if view counts went up, I wouldn't assume Biden is suddenly popular. I would simply assume Youtube decided to monetize the view count by selling them to creators for perceived clout or someone else did with bots, and I would probably be right. The angry voices on Twitter are there because that's Jack Dorsey's personal opinions and he amplifies them. If Jack was a Republican, it would be a non-stop Bible thump instead.

None of it is real to me. It's all imaginary numbers and GPT generated text blocks with thispersondoesnotexist.com profile pictures. I mean, it wasn't even a week ago where the media is running video with Biden's hand passing through reporter's microphones as he answered questions. Almost everything online and in the media is faked now.

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