This is why I'm not stingy with upvotes. They may just be imaginary internet points, but if I can make somebody's day a little bit better by clicking a a button, why not?
I usually upvote everything in the comment chain above me and anyone who replies, unless it's a particularly bad take.
If we want Lemmy to be an enjoyable place to have discussions, it's good to spread some love, ya feel?
I'd think it would work into "the algorithm" somehow, either Likes or Comments probably tell them about viewer engagement, which I'm sure Youtube likes to see. So maybe it helps them show up in the 'Suggested Videos' feed (or whatever it's called) on the right side of the screen. Anything that gets them more views probably translates to more subscribers and/or dollars or whatever it is that people are doing on youtube.
AFAIK any interaction counts as a plus for the video. Comments, likes, comment likes, subscribes, dislikes, sharing, etc.
Basically youtube's goal is to make you as engaged with the app as possible. So if a video is causing high engagement, they will promote it more than videos that have low engagement.
It's all really just complicated statistics handled by machine learning algorithms designed to keep people on the app as long as possible.
Hmm. I've never seen on of those although I don't really read the comments on YouTube videos. Is the one asking for likes the YouTuber or just other users commenting to like their comments?