> Let's say I found a way to bring back the number of dislikes of YT videos. Knowing that some YT devs are on the platform, I'd be reluctant to share it so that they won't know about it [0] and ruin the already-ruined YT experience. It shouldn't be like this, I know. But I've lost hope in the well-intentions of some devs in the industry. I thought we were supposed to have each other's back, but apparently money makes people do anything.
Think you are blaming the wrong people here. Developers do not decide what will be done/removed in an app like YT, managers do. Of course they do it for the money (or some personal thing).
Sure there is people upholding solidarity as a principle and support you but there will always we those who play zero sum games (see Watzlawick) and those who really don't know better than to offend others being insensitive.
> ... watched a YT tutorial to sharpen your skills? Now w/o the dislikes count, all devs have a much harder time filtering useless videos.
Only very specific topics and most of the time I have to find out if the approach taken in the video (still) works either way. On a personal note: I prefer learning new stuff from other people (not only devs), by reading the documentation and get some hands on experience. YT feels like it's making me unproductive because it seeks attention too much and also a lot of people there are behaving in a very annoying way (because they seek attention, too and because they want to make money).
The reason I don't communicate with HN (anymore) is the strong US-centric view which in my opinion is prevalent here and it's just not my community because I don't share much with them (believes, lifestyle etc.). It is a news aggregator for me and the comments let me know what (rich) people in the US think about those headlines.
In turn, the users who do actively post and comment have an amplified affect on what the 90% actually see. I find this to be particularly interesting when the culture of a userbase changes. I've been a long time user of Reddit, however rarely am I ever logged in. Overtime, I've felt that the culture of Reddit has changed to be much more liberal with posting low-effort comments. Many new users post on every post they see, while a previous generation of users may have dismissed that kind of behavior as being "Facebook-like" behavior. I think it may be another factor in the age old rule that the larger a site grows, the more the quality of discussion drops.
> But they're not voting so they're irrelevant.
Thank you for this patronizing attitude. TBH I don't vote (and most of the times comment) anymore because I have accepted that my opinion differs too much from most opinions out there so people who run platforms do not want to read it. Even if I do not curse or insult somebody my words will be downvoted, censored etc. so it is just no use to waste my time sharing my opinions and knowledge (yes I have that, too - not just opinions you do not like).
You probably come from US or live inside the same bubble the active HN users do.
Just created this account some weeks ago to be able to answer again, don't know if my comment will even show up here (I think new accounts are not allowed to post).
I prefer Reddit because the users come from different places of the world and have different opinions. It's not a hive like a Borg cube or HN which will try to assimilate you and punish those who think differently.
Of course there is toxic communities, too but at least you can go somewhere else and have a normal conversation or exchange knowledge.
HN is a stub for the opinion of US patriots, average age 40+ with high salary and very specialized IT know how. Just look at the kind of problems people here discuss about and you see what I mean. Reddit is a public forum where different people talk about things they are interested in. Yes, Reddit is also not a mirror of society and in some cases biased but at least you can speak more freely there. Maybe this is what you expressed with "Facebook-like" behavior but I like that you can use it without needing a PhD to be accepted (so dumb people like me can have and share opinions, too).