Yes, if I am trying to fix my dishwasher and I see a video with a high dislike ratio I will move on because at best it's probably a time waster and at worst dangerous.
My options now would be to spend a minute or two watching it or reading the comments (engagement!), which may not exist on some niche videos you run across for things like this. This adds up when browsing. Don't forget creators can disable comments too.
> My options now would be to spend a minute or two watching it or reading the comments
Fully agreed with you on everything you said here, but that specific line I quoted sounds a bit optimistic to me.
You would only waste a minute or two if the video author decided to actually start his video "for real" from the very beginning, instead of spending the first few minutes on his entire life story (that is not even related to the video content) and asking people to like and subscribe. It became so commonplace, these days I instantly start liking videos just for not wasting the first few minutes on things completely irrelevant to the actual content (which would be somewhat fine for entertainment videos, but definitely not for things like DYI tutorials and lessons).
For instructional videos I usually click through to skim before fully committing, especially if they waffle at the start. It works easier on desktop than mobile though.
I'm not sure if it still works, but you used to be able to append something like '&wadsworth' to the end of youtube links and it would act like a timestamp link 30% of the way through the video.
