[whywhywhywhy]

With a dislike counter at least that could signal something is amiss with these videos, but now you just see thumbs up everythings cool guys and the comments can be moderated by the uploader to remove anything negative.

Still don't understand why they removed it.

[hedora]

Money. Lots of dislikes imply lots of ad views.

[whywhywhywhy]

I've worked in advertising on the creative/client facing side, no one cares if their ad gets disliked. Engagement is engagement.

Don't think that's the reason.

[Nextgrid]

He could've meant that dislikes are a signal to people to not watch the video and those represent a lot of lost engagement.

[robonerd]

Downvotes hurt the feelings and egos of enough people with the power/leverage to get it changed. Particularly: politicians, corporations, and youtube executives themselves (e.g. Youtube's Rewind videos getting trashed with mass downvotes.)