YouTube removing the public dislike count is a net negative. There are extensions and work arounds, but this shouldn't be a problem in the first place. Sparing someone's fee fees isn't really worth the tons of low-effort or bad tutorials that people are subjected to because of this decision.
YouTube pushing watch history in your face is a bad idea, in my opinion. My notifications and recommendations are noticeably worse with YouTube History on versus paused or off. YouTube should be recommending me things based on what I like and to whom I'm subscribed instead, I feel like we've had it that way for years and yet they're changing things now.
The history causes issues specifically with the mobile app, too, which caches every video that you've watched recently. This means that YouTube's cache can easily reach over 2 GB, slowing the app down on even my (pretty powerful) mobile device.
On top of that, YouTube's actions against ad blockers are not only greed-fueled, but also implemented in the strangest ways possible. From a dev standpoint, it makes no sense why you would want longer load times and choppier buffering, especially when workarounds such as downloading the videos still exist.