YouTube's Forgotten Co-Founder Uses The Best Soapbox Ever

Jawed Karim is not a household name. As the third co-founder of YouTube, he does have one pretty notable accomplishment though ... he was the first user to ever post a video on YouTube. The clip, called “Me at the zoo,” is more than 15 years old.

So when YouTube announced that they would be removing the dislike button from videos, he had an unusually good place to respond. He updated the comment on his original video to express his displeasure. It's a unique soapbox and he used it vocally:

“The ability to easily and quickly identify bad content is an essential feature of a user-generated content platform. Does YouTube want to become a place where everything is mediocre?”

It is a hard question to answer. The dislike button did encourage people to flag bad or misleading content. It also encourages people to focus on the negative - a large problem across social media right now. So I'm personally not sure if it was a good move or not. But I am sure that Karim just flexed by sharing his opinion through the coolest soapbox ever.