It indicates to the poster that someone (you) liked their post. Perhaps that encourages them to make other similar posts.

That sounds like exactly the kind of addiction-reinforcing Skinner box nonsense that leads to influencers, parasocial relationships and a content economy, and all of the dark patterns of social media that the fediverse is designed to avoid.

People shouldn't be posting to get the endorphine rush from clicks or to satisfy metrics. They should post whatever they want, whenever they want. If you like what someone posts, you can follow their account, or better yet the hashtags they use. That should be sufficient.

Not having a like button seems like a good design choice TBH.

> That sounds like exactly the kind of addiction-reinforcing Skinner box nonsense that leads to influencers, parasocial relationships and a content economy,

No, this is the digital analogue of a non-verbal expression. Basic table stakes - unless you categorize human behavior as "addiction-reinforcing".

>unless you categorize human behavior as "addiction-reinforcing".

In the context of social media most human behavior is addiction-reinforcing, because that is the behavior that those platforms are designed to reinforce. The medium is the message.

The issue with social media isn’t with encouraging or content creators, it is with how consumers are conditioned.

The incentives are related and create a feedback loop. Give someone a number and they'll do whatever it takes to make that number go up.

In which case either favorite or bookmark will do the trick, correct? Why worry whether you're clicking the "wrong" one?

Boost will also do it, but it has more side effects.

In real life, your friend tells you a moderately funny story that happened to him. You tell the friend, "nice story" (that's a like).

Another friend tells you a super funny story. You then go and tell other friends this same funny story. (that's a boost).

Different real life things, that are captured by digital tools.

What I have a problem with are quote tweets, which are like talking about someone in front of them, without including them in the conversation.

Because I don’t want to boost or add the toot to a perma-list, I just want to give the person that posted something I like some acknowledgement.

It isn’t important, it’s just something I would like to do.