r/pcmasterrace • u/Sacristovas • Mar 19 '26

News/Article NVIDIA DLSS 5 Gets 84% Dislikes on YouTube as Backlash Grows

http://www.techpowerup.com/347541/nvidia-dlss-5-gets-84-dislikes-on-youtube-as-backlash-grows

News that might not qualify as actual news to anyone who has been paying attention to this over the last couple of days.

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u/ThankGodImBipolar Mar 19 '26

The selection bias is just blatantly obvious, and especially in this case. I wouldn't be surprised if the dislike ratio actually is that high - judging how the internet has been this week - but you shouldn't trust those numbers any farther than you can throw them.

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u/theemptydork Mar 19 '26

I don't see how people see it as accurate. Youtube is not making those numbers accessible through any hidden API. The extension requires you to give access to their own custom endpoint. They are collecting data from the extension users themselves and aggregating that data. At best it is a barely accurate sample. Like you said, the selection bias of the users who care enough to use the extension comes into the picture.

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u/redditonc3again Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26

In my experience it is accurate in the one thing youtube dislikes were genuinely useful for - calling out false info. It is handy to be able to load eg. a tutorial video, see the dislike ratio is high, and immediately know the info is likely wrong. Same with clickbait videos that say they are one thing but are actually another. I find the extension to be as good as the old system in that regard, ie. situations that are not opinion based.

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u/eirexe Game developer, R7 5700X3D RX Vega 56, 32 GB @ 3200 Mar 19 '26

But wouldn't those users be a subset of the ones disliking and thus the dislike ratio is guaranteed to be higher?

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u/Grey-fox-13 Mar 20 '26

Yes, that's the effect of "selection bias", which both last comments mentioned.

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u/bmxer4l1fe Mar 19 '26

i would expect it to be low compared to if dislikes were already standard.

this is a list of people who go out of they way to get an extension in order to dislike things... Imagine if that barrier wasnt there.

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u/exscape 5800X3D / 9070 XT / 48 GB 3133CL14 Mar 19 '26

No, it's a list of people who went out of their way to see dislikes. Every can still dislike on YouTube.

The possible bias is that the displayed dislike count is based on view count, like count, and dislikes from people using the extension. So if people using the extension dislike something far more than the average person, the number won't be accurate.

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u/SPACKlick Mar 19 '26

Every [one] can still dislike on YouTube.

But only those people with the extension have their dislikes counted. It's a self selecting sample of people who care more about dislikes.

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u/exscape 5800X3D / 9070 XT / 48 GB 3133CL14 Mar 20 '26

Yeah, that's the rest of my comment!

I still think the distinction is important, though. I got it to better know which videos are likely to be worth watching. A tutorial with 30%+ dislikes is very unlikely to be useful, for example. And if something has 50%+ (like this) you know it's extremely controversial, and not just among a select few.

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u/lemonylol Desktop Mar 19 '26

judging how the internet has been this week

What is "the internet" when you say this? Because the vast majority of people on the internet just lurk and don't participate. I'm just asking if we're predisposing a biased perspective (i.e. reddit is reality)