On many YouTube forums, I see a variation on the same question:

“Why doesn’t YouTube give us the option to give a reason on the ‘dislike’ button? It would help creators understand why someone didn’t like our content and allow us to make improvements.”

The interesting thing to me is that creators almost never ask for an explanation field to be added to the “thumbs up” button. It’s as if positive feedback can stand on its own while negative feedback requires justification.

On its own, thumbs up isn’t really much of a message, if thumbs down on its own isn’t. If it’s necessary to give detail on thumbs down, then it would mean that thumbs up is just as mysterious, but because it’s considered a positive thing, the mystery is fine. After all, detail on thumbs up would be more helpful than thumbs down, really, because we could figure out what works and do more of it.

In essence, thumbs up or down is (from what I understand) just a measure as to whether a viewer is engaged enough to do something beyond clicking on the video and watching it. Comments do the same. Sure, comments give a little bit more of the story, but people who feel negatively and post, “I HATE THIS” or whatever (they can get much worse, but you get the idea) don’t give us any more context than a thumbs down.

And comments can be even less helpful than thumbs up, when it comes to creating good content. Someone typing “FIRST!” does literally nothing to help us make better content, nor does it show engagement beyond someone typing, but it’s still considered engagement by YouTube.

Overall, I’d say people have to stop worrying about the buttons. Thumbs down doesn’t negatively impact your ratings, though they may affect your feelings.