I don't think it's manufactured. I think there are two kinds of people: * a smaller group of people who care about it (like me); * and a majority of people wh

I don't think it's manufactured. I think there are two kinds of people: * a smaller group of people who care about it (like me); * and a majority of people who don't care either way about votes. YouTube can satisfy both by keeping downvotes, but Google is notorious about not giving a fuck about users and only caring about results. The small number of people who care about downvotes aren't going to stop watching because they're gone, so when viewed through the lens of Google's metrics these people simply don't exist at all.