When did youtube get so bad?

The year when YouTube removed the number of dislikes shown.

It got really bad after the 2016 election which had the pizzagate thing come out because hillarys emails were leaked and she was talking to dudes who had sadist kitty porn on their instagrams. Youtube probably cost them the election because of those leaks

2016 was the turning point, I think that most of us can agree

When they started mislabeling anything they didn't like as mIsInFoRmAtIoN

Back when Fred was a thing? No, not really.
Back when I could downvote comments? Yeah, kinda.
Back when I could downvote videos? Yeah, definitely.

Now absolute douchebags can get away with free clicks and less bounces because no one can see the vote ratio. Greatest way to screw everybody at the same time.

I heard there was a browser extension that could show the votes again, but forgot to look for it. I wonder if it still works?

When too many people started to make a lot of money from it. Instead of certain, popular content getting some brand deals, it seems like now everyone can do it and make a living. The key is getting watchers to click the content - so instead of making quality content, they just get you to click and possibly make you angry/annoyed/triggered enough for you to comment. More comments + more clicks = more money for them.

Back in 2008 I was using YouTube to watch pirated TV shows and parodies. Now I use YouTube to watch pirated TV shows and comedy skits, amateur comedy sketches and parodies. Nothing changed for me.

It was better back then because it was new and it was all random people who posted random low quality clips for fun. Now it has turned into a serious platform where lots of work has to go into the video making and it's more about popularity than just having fun and messing around. It happens to every platform after a few years, unfortunately. It's the same with Instagram which was fun and random back in the day. Major platforms like these gets taken advantage of by people looking for fame and then it's downhill from there with stricter rules and heightened difficulty with reaching out. It's not possible to avoid.

Yes it was far better.

Then they started up full on monetisation of users content, followed by increasingly irritating algorithms to promote their crap.

It is now filled with morons and their derivative clickbait bullshit. All trying to become the next big YouTube personality.

i like the weirdo who clears beaver dams and obsesses over drain culverts

also the crazy bulldozer guy

and various car repair channels

other than that i couldnt be bothered

Blame COPPA

The demonetization thing? Yeah that sucks. YouTube could of done the smart thing and just gave advertisers a little spreadsheet to fill out about their company values and if certain topics was alright to show their ads on.

Instead of alienating the people who make the product that gets people willing to sit through 2 minutes of ads.

Google needs to be smarter than petty political shit.

As soon as they got proper control of it but I suppose they had to. It was wild at first.