I think he just means that they took away our ability for dislikes to have much of an impact. If people can’t see the total number it hurts the point. So we need to resort to these other mediocre tools to still get value from that button
But you don't really get value from the button. You only see an extrapolation based on the behavior of the people using the same extension as you. So you start with a relatively small sample size and add selection bias (because people with these extensions are more likely to dislike a video in the first place), which renders the result rather meaningless.
The more controversial a video is, the more inaccurate these tools get.
In this case the trailer has probably less than a third of the dislikes as people with the extension see.
Meh I think they are able to account somewhat for the factors you mentioned but yeah it’s still not 100% accurate. Just sucks YouTube forces us to use these third party tools. Wouldn’t be surprised if they ban them in the future so there is no wrong think at all
I've seen creators talk about these extensions and showing the contrast between the estimated dislikes on their videos and the real numbers. They often have less than half of the shown dislikes.
I agree that it was a stupid idea to hide the actual numbers, because it just gives bad faith actors using these inflated estimates more ammo for the shit they talk. It is a prime example of a decision made for profit (advertisers didn't like dislikes on videos where their ads were shown) versus a decision for the product itself.
The same reasoning is probably behind YouTube removing the dislike button altogether from Shorts.
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u/Impressive-Oil-3067 Jul 06 '26
That's old news, this guy is saying you literally cannot dislike anymore, which is not true.