I would posit that those who feel strongly about this are a miniscule but vocal minority of regular visitors to YouTube and overrepresented at places like HN.
By itself, the like feature has never been a good signal about the quality of content, and is more of an emotional referendum on the level of controversy surrounding the video or creator. It has been a useless feature for a long time, I really can't say I have taken it seriously since I first encountered YouTube around 2006. This is a tiny concern compared to the influence that the recommendation algorithm as whole wields over both consumers and creators on the platform.
Likes have always been some part of that algorithm but the significance of their role in recommendations seems to have waned as time went on. As such, they are largely useless to both users and YouTube, which seems to explain this decision.
If anything it is a testament to how much other information they are now collecting on user engagement that they no longer feel they need this feature.
By itself, the like feature has never been a good signal about the quality of content, and is more of an emotional referendum on the level of controversy surrounding the video or creator. It has been a useless feature for a long time, I really can't say I have taken it seriously since I first encountered YouTube around 2006. This is a tiny concern compared to the influence that the recommendation algorithm as whole wields over both consumers and creators on the platform.
Likes have always been some part of that algorithm but the significance of their role in recommendations seems to have waned as time went on. As such, they are largely useless to both users and YouTube, which seems to explain this decision.
If anything it is a testament to how much other information they are now collecting on user engagement that they no longer feel they need this feature.