HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

It became a meme in it's own right and is still referenced fairly often 3 years later. It was downvoted heavily because it's a particularly laughable example of how out-of-touch corporations can be. I think this is the most likely reason why YouTube is removing dislikes: they need to protect their advertising dollars.

Here's the video, for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbJOTdZBX1g

>Almost always a large number of dislikes on content like "rewind" videos expresses widespread genuine disapproval of content

Presumably he's referring to this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbJOTdZBX1g

This could also be a pride thing for Youtube/Alphabet. For the past few years the Youtube Rewind video [0] has somewhat infamously gotten heavily downvoted, mostly I think as a reflection of how frustrated viewers are with Youtube and maybe Alphabet as well. I'm sure the executives feel some catharsis taking away an avenue for users to express that frustration.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbJOTdZBX1g

⬐ deadmutex

My take on it is that there is a number of diverse creators on the platform, and many YT users see a very different set of creators. E.g. You might see creators X, Y, Z and I might watch A, B, C for different topics. So, when it comes time to rewind, you can't please everyone since you'll have to pick a subset of creators. And then those who didn't see their favorite creators will be saying things like "Where was creator J? I watched so many of their videos, and they have a billion views, etc." And they might dislike the video, because they feel not represented. So, in my mind, the YT way to do rewind would be to do a custom rewind for each person (but there's no technology to automatically make a high quality video like that today).

Of course, this is just my theory about a segmentation of the population. Then there are people with their own agenda, and will use the dislike button as a protest for other things. Then once it reaches some threshold, some people just like to hit the dislike button to see how far they can push it.

Disclaimer: These are my own views, and not of my employer.

⬐ ainar-g

Rewind is kind of old news. Now that time YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki received a Free Expression Award from an organisation sponsored by YouTube[1] is more recent and something else completely, ratio-wise. Currently at 56,502 dislikes vs 226 likes. Which is a ratio of over 250×.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDcvPf78g1k

⬐ ernst_10

And now Susan is proving those downvotes were more than justified. It's not just that though, also all the left-wing stuff being downvoted is hurting feelings over at Google HQ. They desperately want to believe the public is overwhelmingly on their side.

Rewind 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbJOTdZBX1g

Top comments are telling:

> Who the hell are these people?

> If you have a platform with thousands of creators and only get along well with twenty... You know you are a failure.