What is the true benefit of likes and dislikes count?
As an end user, when I watch YouTube videos, most of the time likes and dislikes count doesn't really give me any useful information.
View count drives my interest higher to watch the video. The very rare situation in which I notice likes and dislikes count is when a video is truly hated by the community, which occurs once in many many videos. Other condition that captures my attention is when likes count is way way higher than dislikes count (say for example 25K likes vs. 300 dislikes).
These two conditions are so rare, that I wonder why do we follow this pattern of adding likes and dislikes to posts and media online?
Aren't we just following some pattern? I fail to understand the usage of this feedback. Shouldn't we discard this pattern for a more useful assessment approach? What's the true nature and usage of likes and dislikes count?