Somehow, despite this failure as an executive - a failure of the kind that got Vic Gundotra fired - she has not only not been fired but ended up running the site that beat her, where she has spent the last half decade trying to turn it back into Google Video.
In 2018 some TV executives with Disney ties founded Moonbug Entertainment, which proceeded to swallow up lots of the more popular channels. Sound familiar? Such as Little Baby Bum, Cocomelon and Blippi, the last two of which were $120 million. All excellent programming. This seems to be the way of the World.
My son also loves Vlad and Niki. They make cute, silly videos that gross millions of US dollars per month. There is serious money involved in this now.
From the article:
> We’ve also heard directly from smaller creators, and those just getting started with their YouTube channel, that they are unfairly targeted by dislike attacks. Our experiment data confirmed that this behavior does occur at a higher proportion on smaller channels.
People who are just getting started on YouTube tend to have poor production quality and editing skills compared to established channels. That might have been acceptable in YouTube's early days when there were no standards, but now we're at a point where we've all seen thousands of videos on YouTube, and we all collectively expect high quality content.
Seems quite natural that smaller channels that are just getting started by people who are still learning will be disliked more often than large channels. Hardly a valid reason to eliminate the dislike button.
Correct.
> objective analysis
Assumption.
For all we know, they could be making up bullshit to cover up the real reason; e.g. Disney/Marvel (a source of revenue) or the White House (with the threat of potential regulations or maybe just the political bias of YT staff) or YouTube themselves (YouTube Rewind) are very unhappy that their videos are so unpopular.
Since we can't access their data, we will never know one way or the other. We either have to trust their corporate PR, as you seem to have done, or analyze their possible motives for making a decision that is seemingly user-hostile.
Instead, "I uncritically accept corporate PR as objective analysis" is what I consider to be a stupid way to go through life.
Maybe your priors include "corporations always tell the truth", but mine don't.
That obviously doesn't mean we should accept some alternative conspiracy theory X as the truth, but it does mean we should be skeptical and open minded about other explanations, especially given the context in this particular case of: (i) zero supporting data provided by YT, (ii) a very plausible set of alternative explanations that would be political suicide for YT to publicly state, (iii) the apparent anecdotal user-hostility of this decision.
None of social media is optimized around what people like or enjoy watching. It is only optimized on one thing: engagement to drive ad revenue via addictive practices. Engagement != enjoyment. That especially includes YouTube.
Google wants youtube to be all network and brands making content. ie. a future version of what TV is now. What actual people want is creator made videos(diy/review/podcast videos and everything else that make youtube wonderful).
This disconnect has been happening since google bought youtube and this recent change only reflects google wanting to hide backlash/or dislike from who it sees should rightfully be on youtube, brands/networks/corporations.