I stil don’t understand why the fifty/day limit is a big deal and I’d like to understand, even if it’s just one person’s perspective.
Yes, I’ve run out of likes. Some days the back-and-forth on BB is just that good. I like things that make me laugh, make me think, show compassion, open up the conversation (even if it’s something I don’t agree with), or whenever a commenter concedes a point or otherwise earnestly considers another’s point of view. And, of course, savage burns.
To me, a limit on likes makes sense. The top 5 ‘likers’ of my posts tell me that we may have more in common than that between any two random commenters. Ditto for my top 5 ‘liked’ commenters.
Like-bombing reduces this critical signal-to-noise ratio when suddenly your top 5 likers are those who seem to like everything. The unique constellation of your like-o-sphere has now reconfigured around a locus of those handing out the most likes.
Likes are literally the least you can do on Discourse to communicate your support or agreement. As Jeff once pointed out, replies are, in a way, an even greater ‘like’ because that commenter thought your post was worth taking their time to read, process, and respond to.
And that, after all, is what lower-case-d discourse is all about.
