Ultimately, YT comments are fairly horrible. Apart from an occasionally decent joke or even more occasional comment from the video's subject, youtube comments are either nasty or banal... with a high % of nasty. Racism, nasty politics, sexual harassment, other kinds of harassment... The median top comment is a troll.
Of all the major social media, I can't think of a worse commenting culture.
Banning comments on children sounds like a decent decision from "the suits" to curb the most harmful effects but... where are the product people?
Surely, someone, at some point, has had ideas for how to improve this travesty of a discussion feature. It's not like you're risking much. Even if changes kill commenting entirely...
How could google let this be so terrible for so long?