[auc]

First part of your comment is right, but your reasoning is wrong. A couple years ago, YouTube changed the visibility of negative comments, such that positive comments are prioritized (can’t like a comment if you don’t even see it).

This was also around the time they removed the thumbs up/down count.

This was to prevent creator burnout; imagine if every video you put out had some snarky diss against you in the comments.