[k9s9]

They really need to turn off the visibility of the like count next to every thought and utterance, and return social interaction to some semblance of what it used to be throughout history.

Making it a social norm to get everyone on the planet to score everything that comes out of a mind should be treated as a violation of the ability to think independent thoughts and express oneself.

Throwing this arbit feedback loop into social interaction has changed social interaction and behavior without any debate. The fix to revert it is simple.

That is the only thing that needs to be spoken about. Everything else is a just a symptom of it.

[mindgam3]

I agree. The Like button turned everything into a performance done for points. They are extremely unlikely to remove it as it drives engagement which drives their entire business model.

Arguably Karma points on HN have similar drawbacks, but somehow they mostly work better than Likes. Combination of downvotes + not showing a list of voters helps.