YouTube is eliminating the Video Response feature entirely beginning Sept. 12.
This shows a disgusting lack of vision and understanding by YouTube about the community aspects of their site. Video responses are not intended for general consumption but rather are geared towards conversation that extends beyond the ridiculous character limits imposed by the YT comment system.
The feature (when used at its best) is used by creators to connect with their audiences not for self promotion and spamming.
Algorithmic number crunching is not how we should be gauging community experiences or the value of features like Video Responses. All that does is encourage spammers to game the system. We've seen it with reply girls last year, and with many other iterations before that.
The use cases of Video Responses connecting audiences with creators and fans with each other is beyond measure. Many of the top tier YouTube creators began their careers responding to each other via the YouTube video response feature. This is a unique feature unavailable on any other platform out there (including Vine, Instagram, Yahoo! Video, Blip.tv, or Vimeo) to eliminate the feature as the FIRST step in the process is completely short-sighted and shows a complete failure to understand the deep and complex ways in which features are being used. Instead the executives at YouTube have chosen to rely on numbers gathered from the WHOLE of YouTube which includes every cat video and viral rocketship on the site to come to their decision.
The response videos to a viral video are not there for conversation and community building, they are there for self-promotion and the hope that MAYBE someone will click through to your video. THIS is the problem YouTube is attempting to solve with this move. As a result they are eliminating the one-on-one use cases, the cases where the next Justin Beiber, or PewDiePie may have turned on their camera for the very first time to respond to a video they saw, intending for only ONE person (the creator they are responding to) to view it, but instead it launches a whole career. THIS is what YouTube is losing by eliminating the feature.