I don't see how that is relevant to this debate. Of course they are free to make product changes. As a user I am free to dislike it and complain about it in an effort to get it to change. What do you suggest we do? Should we all just shut up? I've been a paid youtube premium member since the beginning. As well as a youtube tv subscriber. They should take user feedback seriously. But they aren't.
I use youtube for entertainment and learning. This change has seriously made youtube less useful to me on the learning side because the dislike count was a good signal to the quality of the information in the video.
I see what you're saying. Certainly, I didn't mean to imply that anyone isn't entitled to complain about it! I should have worded what I was saying differently: There are tradeoffs in having dislike counts visible. Having it will be better for some people, not having it will be better for others. So if we only have one only service that provides video to everyone, then we're stuck in a situation where one of these groups has to get a worse experience.
You seem to be coming to this debate with a very different set of assumptions. I think with a bit of creativity, YouTube could satisfy both sides. Give creators the ability to remove dislikes. They previously had that ability, but they were forced to remove likes and dislikes together if they wanted do to that.
A lot of the YouTube community is reeling from this because the harassment concern brought up by YouTube management doesn't seem legitimate. They've never proven this is a real issue that warrants such a big change. It just seems like an excuse to push an unpopular change for nefarious reasons.
I use youtube for entertainment and learning. This change has seriously made youtube less useful to me on the learning side because the dislike count was a good signal to the quality of the information in the video.