Good question. I definitely thought about just hiding all the views. I was interested in creating the illusion that all the videos are super popular – I feel like seeing a random really high view count creates false excitement.
I think a view-count-less YouTube would be really interesting, but more uncomfortable in a way. How do we know what's "the best" if the numerical values are totally gone? I wonder if it's more comfortable to know you're being lied to than to have no view count at all.