IIRC that decision was made shortly after Wojcicki (YT chief at the time) posted a video that got some incredibly huge quantity of dislikes vs likes, and/or Bid

IIRC that decision was made shortly after Wojcicki (YT chief at the time) posted a video that got some incredibly huge quantity of dislikes vs likes, and/or Biden had the same issue. Don't recall the exact timeline. Dislikes disappeared shortly afterwards. Seems more likely it was in response to powerful people being upset at being disliked than commercial imperatives.