A tough position faces YouTube, the most popular video-sharing site on the Internet. In an effort to make YouTube a safer and more pleasant environment, the site is eliminating the power of thumbs-down video ratings.
Many YouTubers, including the co-founder Jawed Karim, have complained about the shift. Will the backlash force YouTube’s hand, restoring the full power of negative user sentiment, or has it already been written in stone?
The change
The update to Google’s market-leading video service is quite basic. The thumbs-down button isn’t going anywhere, but viewers will be unable to assess how many bad reviews a certain video has. The number of thumbs-up ratings will not change.
The dislike count is visible behind the scenes to creators, and the negative clicks will be incorporated into the algorithms that determine every YouTube user’s stream of suggested videos. It’s just the public display of negative I’m-not-a-fan ratings that is gone.
All YouTube viewers are currently receiving the modification. You may or may not be able to access it right now.
The controversy
The broader concept is pretty harmless. Certain films were discovered to have an unintended use of the dislike button, with increasing amounts of negative evaluations being handled as if they were “a game with a visible scoreboard.” These storms of “dislike” mouse clicks had nothing to do with the video itself, but rather targeted certain video creators and “what they stand for.”
With visible thumbs-down counts, YouTube conducted some tests to see if the quieter version encourages less of this undesirable behavior. In the hope of moderating the hostile and divisive misuse of thumbs-down ratings, YouTube has adopted a standard policy for all future videos.
“Honestly, I believe you’ll get used to it rather quickly. Keep in mind that other platforms don’t even have a dislike button,” Koval concluded his video on the subject.
Community responses
The undeclared number of dislikes was quickly rejected by some YouTubers. The general consensus is that the bad reviews are an important and beneficial tool for directing viewers toward high-quality videos, and that it’s a terrible idea to eliminate public count.
Other video sites such as TikTok and Instagram, according to YouTuber Marques Brownlee (15 million subscribers, 2.8 billion total video views), do not offer negative ratings, but they are nevertheless distinct from YouTube.
Other video-centric social networking sites are little more than “content recommendation engines” that aim to maximize viewership in platform-by-platform popularity contests. As a general rule, Google’s YouTube is considerably more popular than its own search engine. It also functions as a “large search engine,” as one might expect from a tool under the wing of search-giant Google. As a result, Google’s service makes less sense than the TikToks and Instagrams of the world, since limiting not-too-good feedback from viewers who didn’t find what they were looking for in an instructional video or an opinion piece makes sense.
The most popular YouTuber on YouTube, PewDiePie (110 million subscribers, 28 billion views), agreed with Brownlee. Negative reviews may be helpful in real-world searches for high-quality material. The two stars also stated that “certain videos truly do need public criticism,” as PewDiePie put it.
It’s a common misconception that popularity equals quality. You may need to understand something about the quality of your search results in order to avoid being duped. Entertainment for the sake of entertainment does not have to be entertaining.
Finally, YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim made his feelings known in an original manner. Instead of releasing a new video, blog article, or podcast about it, he altered the description to the platform’s first ever video. The timeless nature of “Me at the Zoo,” an 18-second slice of life featuring Jawed in front of a few elephants, makes it a valuable broadcasting possibility. It has nearly 203 million views to date, with over 11 million comments, 10 million likes, and 225,000 negative reactions.
The new video is described as a “universally disliked change,” and the video description now claims that not one of the service’s content providers supports it. Jawed’s video description reads:
But why? Because not all user-generated content is great. It simply can’t be. In fact, the vast majority of it is terrible. And that’s just fine. The notion never was that all information was high quality.
As a result, dissatisfied users must be permitted to express themselves. Otherwise, the system would collapse.
Jawed asked, “Does YouTube want to become a location where everything is just okay? Nothing can be excellent if nothing is terrible.”
In certain aspects and in certain lights, YouTube’s objectives make sense.
Even if it means giving up platform-defining elements, making the video platform less prone to random acts of exclusion and derision is beneficial in its own right. The rating system has previously been altered — from a five-star scale to like-or-dislike alternatives in 2009 — and it may be argued that it was better off as a result. But suppose the new system makes YouTube behave more like TikTok and Instagram, which might not be such a bad idea. The new YouTube Shorts module is another step in that direction anyhow. Let’s just embrace change and go with the flow!
One significant reason for this gloomy conclusion is that it overlooks one key factor. YouTube isn’t some upstart attempting to catch up with the big winners. It’s a market leader with a distinct niche that its biggest competitors can’t easily copy, and it has no plans to change course anytime soon (or ever?).
Google should double down on quality and let the rest compete based on total viewership numbers. Advertisers will pay a premium for a more engaged audience, which is why we’re seeing an increase in high-quality content.
The business is already blossoming. Ad sales grew 43% year over year in the third quarter to $7.2 billion. I can’t predict what will happen if the useful quality ratings are replaced by a popularity contest, which publishes only kind comments and hides the negative. But it wouldn’t surprise me if a significant portion of the YouTube audience moved on to other platforms, turning YouTube into yet another TikTok imitation with an extensive and colorful past.
That would be a real tragedy for YouTube users and Alphabet investors. I give the planned content-rating system shift a thumbs down as an Alphabet shareholder. Please don’t do it, YouTube.
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