[systemvoltage]

YouTube is such an awesome thing. The executives want to destroy it. The content creators and users are pissed off.

This whole dislike thing fundamentally breaks YT for me. Completely. I will not waste time watching videos if they’re not worth watching.

There is a reason why IMDB is a thing. If they remove ratings, it becomes useless. Ratings are the foundational aspect of IMDB.

Google needs a lesson or two and I hope the community responds in the strongest form of protest.

[InitialLastName]

> There is a reason why IMDB is a thing. If they remove ratings, it becomes useless. Ratings are the foundational aspect of IMDB.

Are the ratings why people go to IMDB? I use IMDB as a database on the internet for movies and TV cast/crew credits. I almost never look at the ratings for the things I look up.

[thriftwy]

IMDB ratings are solid and often the main reason why people go to IMDB at all.

8: a masterpiece

7: enjoyable

6: watchable if you like that specific thing

5 and lower: oddball

There are some exceptions for niche movies (may have very low or very high rating) and for recently aired, otherwise it's pretty reliable.

[nefitty]

I always thought crowd sourced ratings was one of the killer apps of the internet. That's what makes Airbnb possible, what made darknet markets successful, what makes Amazon powerful...

Throwing away ratings is like going into the woods to live and throwing away your book on native plant life. I guess just nibble at whatever looks good, even if it might be void of nutritional value or poisonous at worst.

[systemvoltage]

It’s amazing that this needs to be spelled out for the HN community. I thought how can you ever oppose this - I am trying hard to listen to the counter arguments but it’s just not holding up. Something sinister is going on and we are secretly wishing for an authoritarian world - my cynical guess.