Nowadays, this is what the dislike button does.
But seriously, this is so stupid on Youtube's part. Why is privating the dislike button so stupid? Lots of reasons, I'll tell ya!
1: A dislike expresses a person's OPINION! Even if it may seem like a trolling move of some kind, every person in the world has an opinion on something, whether good or bad or right or wrong, it's they're opinion nevertheless. Ratatouille is said to be one of the best films by Pixar by both critics and audiences but there are a handful of people who do generally dislike the film. Heck, some folks in my family thought Ratatouille was boring and my mother had a bad experience with rats as a kid, thus should couldn't get over the fact that rats were cooking. Of course, there is the Emoji Movie which is a widely panned film and it was the first animated feature nominated for worst picture and the first to win one. But surprisingly, some people in my comments section, whenever I talk about the Emoji Movie said they do like the movie.
2: Privating the dislikes will not prevent harassment and attacks as they stated. If anything, it'll make it worse by either the comments or when people make their own videos about it. Now, I do understand the logic behind what they're trying to do. You cannot get rid of dislikes. You can get rid of comments and you can block a person ranting against you on their own video and even hide their videos. But in the long run, there will be more people commenting or making a video about their dislike for you than just disliking your video, perhaps for a good reason.
3: Sometimes it's fun to have a dislike button. There was a user who once asked people to give him 1 million dislikes. He has achieved his goal and then he wanted to go with 10 million dislikes. But then the thing was removed, leaving that video nowadays completely pointless. In fact, the Sadak 2 trailer managed to do so before he could and he's only half way there. And sometimes, people love to poke fun of the amount of people who dislike any video. Take for instance, the Eye of the Tiger video. At one pont, I looked at the dislike bar and said "The (Insent amount of dislikes) people who dislike the video or song are in the stomach of the tiger".
4: Some people have a good reason to dislike the video. I know this is not the best guy to look up, especially with what he did but remember Cosmodore? The latest video he has done is an update on his "apology" with what he has done and it currently sits at 9.6K dislikes. People have been telling him that he needs help and needs to get off Youtube and either turn himself to custody or live a more private life away from "fame and fortune". Because of the removal of the dislike button, I guess more people who acted similar to Cosmodore will still be making content and they will still be celebrated rather than criticized for their actions. The dislike button can help people improve on their video editing skills, another story they want to tackle or to help acknowledge maybe there is something wrong with your video or even their channel as a whole. Heck, Mr. Enter did admit his Nick-o-Rama series felt rushed, especially with his "Rise of the TMNT" review which a lot of people criticized. Thus he's doing a take two on the subject with more Nick shows and some re-reviews of his past Nick-o-Ramas.
5: Making the dislikes private can cause a video to lose its uniqueness. I mean, why else is there a Wikipedia page enlisting all of the most disliked videos on Youtube (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-disliked_YouTube_videos )? I guess we'll have to say goodbye to those videos' uniqueness and not have any hopes of anymore new comers.
I will admit, I did have a hand full of videos where they had more dislikes than likes at the begining of my BRRGames Youtube career and I wasn't well behaved at the time. Like some of my Zoo Tycoon 2 videos back in 2009/2010. But there were still more videos I made with more likes than dislikes and overtime, I have changed on either my animation/filming/gaming career and I try new things every once in a while. They may not be the most praised things in the world but they are enough to make be proud with what I have. I also improved on my behavior and try my best to be as friendly to my friends and followers as much as possible. Yes, a dislike can be problematic but it can also be a helpful tool, not just when you're looking at someone else's video but when you recieve it yourself, which is why I think it is an absolute BS thing to do to get rid of the dislike publicity.
Even the founder of Youtube ain't happy with all this. See this video's description for more info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw
I actually did want to make an animation as an experiment to see how many dislikes I can make and how long the video can last without a single like. But with this change, I can't do that anymore.
