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.
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.
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.
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.
