5 ms·

Update from the dev: > Unfortunately the extension requires quite a large database (~15TB) - and it costs money. > The ad\changelog was supposed to show only

by snug 11mo ago

Update from the dev: > Unfortunately the extension requires quite a large database (~15TB) - and it costs money. > The ad\changelog was supposed to show only on browser restart - i.e. be much less intrusive > The idea behind paid features was also to cover the costs (since donations became smaller than the hosting costs). > I messed up with implementation though. > Sorry. I do feel for the developer, and I am not anti asking for donations, and the full page pop up on browser restart I don't think is terrible, but it would have been better to maybe have a changelog and have a donation button. The ads injected directly into youtube make me lose a lot of trust

ekjhgkejhgk 11mo ago
I don't feel for the developer. If donations is smaller than hosting costs, just stop putting time into it. It's a stupid gimmick anyway.
- andromedaM31 11mo ago
  I consider it to be more valuable than a "stupid gimmick", even if more in message than in direct utility - it fights to retain peer-voting and crowdsourced evaluation on the quality of online information, which is something that seems to be dwindling away with each passing year.
  - gdulli 11mo ago
    I tried to make Twitter and Reddit more usable as they started to enshittify, but after a certain point I realized it was a fundamentally losing battle and gave them up altogether. Those sites were not one or two features away from becoming usable again, the rot was more comprehensive. Today in hindsight, I can see that moving on was the only way to go.
    - ekjhgkejhgk 11mo ago
      Correct, that's why I called it a stupid gimmick. You're trying to fight them on their turf, it'll consume your life and they will wipe you out in a second if they feel like it.
  - Tadpole9181 11mo ago
    The problem is that the number you see is pointless. There's a limited demographic who cares about the dislike numbers so much they go out and install a browser extension, which in then biases how they react to a video. It's basically an echo chamber extension. Not sure what you mean by "fight back", either. Google 100% could not care less if you install this extension. They aren't bringing it back unless the division's leadership has a change of heart on whatever internal goals they wanted to achieve by removing it.
- netsharc 11mo ago
  15TB smells of incompetence. Putting ads, even more. Fucking up the ad displaying logic as he says: even more...
busymom0 11mo ago
> the extension requires quite a large database (~15TB) Maybe I am missing something but how does a database which just needs to store video ID and a number become 15TB in size?
- karmakaze 11mo ago
  It could keep track of each unique dislike. Then maybe the best we can do is use HyperLogLog (or HyperLogLog++ or HyperLogLogLog) per video id.
  - busymom0 11mo ago
    Even if it's tracking each unique dislike, I can't see how it would explode to 15TB of data.
- snug 11mo ago
  The way the plugin works (in my simplified understanding) is that it guesses how many dislikes there are based on the like/dislike ratio of the people that have the plugin installed. So if 100 people that have the plugin installed and there is a 90/10 like/dislike ratio, and the actual video has 1000 likes, it will say that there are 100 dislikes. Youtube not only took away the dislike UI, but stopped publicly giving the number of dislikes even behind the API. But even then, the database could not get that big, you'd only need a few simple tables, one that tracks every plugin users like/dislike on the video they stored it on, and then a table that does the aggregations. 15TB sounds crazy. I'm not a youtuber so idk what content creators could see, but it would have been smarter for them to go after the content creators that have the plugin installed instead of youtube users, not sure why we would care about those kinds of analytics
  - jajuuka 11mo ago
    I wasn't really upset about the removal of the button but this add-on seems superfluous. What benefit does it give users to see how many other users of this extension disliked a video? I would understand if it helped shape your recommendations or home page feed but I'm at a loss here.

by snug 11mo ago

ekjhgkejhgk 11mo ago

I don't feel for the developer. If donations is smaller than hosting costs, just stop putting time into it. It's a stupid gimmick anyway.

andromedaM31 11mo ago
I consider it to be more valuable than a "stupid gimmick", even if more in message than in direct utility - it fights to retain peer-voting and crowdsourced evaluation on the quality of online information, which is something that seems to be dwindling away with each passing year.
- gdulli 11mo ago
  I tried to make Twitter and Reddit more usable as they started to enshittify, but after a certain point I realized it was a fundamentally losing battle and gave them up altogether. Those sites were not one or two features away from becoming usable again, the rot was more comprehensive. Today in hindsight, I can see that moving on was the only way to go.
  - ekjhgkejhgk 11mo ago
    Correct, that's why I called it a stupid gimmick. You're trying to fight them on their turf, it'll consume your life and they will wipe you out in a second if they feel like it.
- Tadpole9181 11mo ago
  The problem is that the number you see is pointless. There's a limited demographic who cares about the dislike numbers so much they go out and install a browser extension, which in then biases how they react to a video. It's basically an echo chamber extension. Not sure what you mean by "fight back", either. Google 100% could not care less if you install this extension. They aren't bringing it back unless the division's leadership has a change of heart on whatever internal goals they wanted to achieve by removing it.
netsharc 11mo ago
15TB smells of incompetence. Putting ads, even more. Fucking up the ad displaying logic as he says: even more...

busymom0 11mo ago

> the extension requires quite a large database (~15TB) Maybe I am missing something but how does a database which just needs to store video ID and a number become 15TB in size?

karmakaze 11mo ago
It could keep track of each unique dislike. Then maybe the best we can do is use HyperLogLog (or HyperLogLog++ or HyperLogLogLog) per video id.
- busymom0 11mo ago
  Even if it's tracking each unique dislike, I can't see how it would explode to 15TB of data.
snug 11mo ago
The way the plugin works (in my simplified understanding) is that it guesses how many dislikes there are based on the like/dislike ratio of the people that have the plugin installed. So if 100 people that have the plugin installed and there is a 90/10 like/dislike ratio, and the actual video has 1000 likes, it will say that there are 100 dislikes. Youtube not only took away the dislike UI, but stopped publicly giving the number of dislikes even behind the API. But even then, the database could not get that big, you'd only need a few simple tables, one that tracks every plugin users like/dislike on the video they stored it on, and then a table that does the aggregations. 15TB sounds crazy. I'm not a youtuber so idk what content creators could see, but it would have been smarter for them to go after the content creators that have the plugin installed instead of youtube users, not sure why we would care about those kinds of analytics
- jajuuka 11mo ago
  I wasn't really upset about the removal of the button but this add-on seems superfluous. What benefit does it give users to see how many other users of this extension disliked a video? I would understand if it helped shape your recommendations or home page feed but I'm at a loss here.