While technically true, showing the Like/Dislike count provided valuable information for viewers. Determining whether or not a video is worth my time will become a lot more difficult.
I'd argue that HN got better after they hid the karma (net of 1 + up - down) on a per-comment basis (even though I was initially opposed to the change at the time).
They can still use like/dislike metrics to decide which videos to offer you and in what sort order, so there's still some signal available.
IMO, HN's fade is worse than just showing the like/dislike ratio. I believe some users see a faded comment and subconsciously get a preference to hit the downvote before even fully reading a comment.
Imagine if Youtube automatically showed unpopular videos in a permanently faded mode; this would be even more user-hostile.
Just give the users the count or ratio, and let them interpret (or ignore) it.
Let's not fool ourselves here. The disklike-horde storming critical but good quality videos because they don't like the message was just as normal as overhyped videos with crap quality. Those systems are broken and this doesn't change much. It just hides which horde likes the vid at the moment.
It would be interesting to know if there is an effect where users are more likely to dislike a video with a bad ratio. If the public perception of a like ratio influenced the viewer's opinion.
It really feels like a lot of people didn't even click through to the _tweet_, which is concise and direct as can be given the nature of Twitter as a platform.
I'll grant that the actual count is still helpful data for users but the title is wrong and it's clear a lot of people never bothering clicking through.
