It’s already really difficult to engage with the content you want to see, but now they’re also taking away the only immediately noticeable metric of a successful video? Genuinely just why
They removed the star system a long time ago. They removed the down votes again a few years back.
They want their algorithm to be the only thing that decides whether you watch a video or not.
That’ll work excellent for all those people trying to find tutorial videos for ‘XYZ’ when you have no verification data to determine whether it’s even a legit tutorial.
People who watch tutorial videos only get on, watch the video and then leave. How are they supposed to make tons of advertising revenue from that? No, we must sacrifice that class of video from the platform, in pursuit of the almighty dollar.
To hope you find new content. YouTube had been putting random low watch count videos in my feed. I never click on them because of their low view count. The thumbsnails make them look like they’re high quality videos. Without the view count I have no idea if they have 1,000 views or millions. They’re hoping I will click on them, subscribe, and spend more time in the app.
Personally I find the highest viewed videos on YT to be the absolute shittiest ones.