> why not just strip out the extra abstraction and complexity and instead use a simpler like/dislike model, just like that YT blog post argues?

This is a perfectly reasonable question. (Please forgive me for the length of my response. This is something I take incredibly seriously because of my role in the industry.)

Even if there is a trend for some users to use a specific function in an unexpected way, it does not mean that all, or even necessarily a majority of users use it in that way. To be super honest: I don't wish to give YouTube the benefit of the doubt. I actively despise every new change they have made, each more aggravating than the last "improvement", but, I will begrudge the fact that they probably did do some amount of research before breaking the existing setup. It was probably a noticeable portion of the userbase who was doing this, even if I was not one of them.

The fact of the matter is, a majority opinion on a thing does not necessarily make it the correct decision.

For example: let's assume that BBS's are first starting to take hold in the modern internet. Let's also assume that a quote function is included into this system. After 3 to 4 years time, the maintainers of the BBS notice that (a certain percentage of) users are abusing the quote function. These malicious actors are "quoting" other users, but inserting words and phrases to make the original user sound stupid or ridiculous.

Therefore, the solution is to instead remove the quote function entirely and force people to manually copy and paste text of other users. A feature of the BBS that existed previously is now gone. It's a *significantly* higher barrier to communicate effectively with other users quickly and effectively. Basic things like seeing who it was that someone has quoted is now effectively much harder to determine.

Problem solved!

Except

1) It doesn't solve the problem.

2) It negatively impacts (a certain percentage of) users who were using the quote function as intended

3) It makes interaction and feedback considerably more clunky

4) It puts arbitrary restraints on the userbase - a user base who is *fully aware of*, and *already accustomed to* the previous function

I think the question should not be:

> Why shouldn't they change this, if (some of the) users are doing it?

But instead something closer to:

> If we were to do this, how is it going to impact the social features of the service?

or

> Are the problems this is trying to solve still going to exist?

or

> How is this going to improve the reliability, useability, and speed of our service?

or

> Do our customers even want this to change?

or

> How much do we want to meddle in the affairs of our users?

I very much get the impression that Google employees - if not a majority of the tech industry - feel some misguided need to decide on behalf of their customers what is best for them. It's a very weird, gross pseudo-motherly role that these companies masquerade as. I can't imagine where this belief came from, but it disgusts me viscerally that some faceless clump of people who I've never so much as seen or spoken to, is to determine what is best for me and several million other people, based on some abstract metric they queried yesterday afternoon. Their business is service and support, not judge and jury. This is something I have had to hammer into the skulls of a lot of employees. We are not the defenders of truth, justice, and human knowledge. We make software.

It just seems like someone got bored one day and went looking for a problem to solve, and was dead set to "fixing" a "problem", without too much forethought.

(I couldn't find a good spot to bring it up, but I also dislike the like/dislike system for at least one other key reason: It implies that the user consumed much more of the product. A low star rating could indicate that someone didn't bother too much with a product because the product was of especially low quality. To "dislike" something indicates that the user used the product for a significantly longer amount of time, gave it a fair chance, and then rated it poorly. There is much less nuance which grates on me like a cheese grater on a compound fracture.)

Overall, I totally get where you're coming from. Seriously. I do understand what you mean, I just have to disagree because of what such a change means, not because of what the outline of it might indicate. If you've made it this far, good on you and thanks for your patience! :)