> IIRC youtube did even get rid of downvotes for a while, as they were mostly used for brigading.

No, they got rid of them most likely because advertisers complained that when they dropped some flop they got negative press from media going "lmao 90% dislike rate on new trailer of <X>".

Stuff disliked to oblivion was either just straight out bad, wrong (in case of just bad tutorials/info) and brigading was very tiny percentage of it.