This conversation is converting me to the “no likes” side of the discussion. Sending an actual comment is nicer, and it doesn’t take a lot more effort to write, “Nice photo!” or “Thanks!” or just send an emoji.
However, I remain a staunch supporter of boosts/reblogs—both showing and doing them. As a poster, I use boosts/reblogs to draw my readers’ attention to posts I think they will find interesting. As a reader, I like boosts/reblogs to find posts that the people I follow find interesting.
Couldn’t you say the same thing you said about likes? It doesn’t take that long for you to just copy the link to a post and make a new post. 
(But I agree that it’s nicer to give small comments! 
)
I don’t think of likes as being visible to anyone other than the recipient.
I guess they are on some platforms?
They started doing this on Twitter like 3 years ago. A lot of people hated this. I know I did.
Yeah, I’m absolutely not petitioning for public likes.
But “Private and voluntary “appreciations” - without metrics”
and “User controlled inbound boosts”. 
I share a lot of the same feelings as many of you. For sure love the strength and toolset of micro.blog and wont be going anywhere. However, I’ve missed the ability to “boost”. I can live without ‘like’ support but emoji support would be neat.
I cobbled a boost solution by using embed from the web timeline. Hidden from my main blog page but shows in the timelines like a boost. Also have them separated in their own category: Shares I’d sure like to see this embed button in the mobile app 
If something similar was a native for boosts, like Replies, for sure would want to be able to filter them out like we can on our profile settings.
Would also be neat to see the boosts from other fediverse accounts and the ability to turn off.
I knew that sounded familiar—and, yes, I’m a former heavy Twitter user, and yes I hated the way they showed me posts that other people liked.
To me, that violates what the “like” button is for. If I think my followers might be interested in seeing a post, I’ll retweet it. A like is just an acknowledgment or show of support. Nobody needs to see that but the recipient.
I very much like the way Threads surfaces conversations that the people I follow are participating in. It helps me find interesting discussions and people to follow.
I think we are all in agreement that nobody here wants like and boost metrics. We don’t care how many likes or boosts a post got. But some of us (me included) would like to be able to boost posts and see other people’s boosts.
I very much like not knowing how many people follow me here. Even if you like seeing follower numbers, the raw number is of limited usefulness. Many of the accounts that follow you will be bots, and abandoned accounts.
I finally came out with a more detailed proposal… on my blog.
If “boosted” posts were its own timeline and not mixed in with the regular timeline, I can be convinced to accept its inclusion. It also could be a user-based Discover timeline of posts with high number of boosts at the top of the timeline. If a post gets > 50 boosts (random number that popped in my head), it’s taken off after 24 hours.
Isn’t "Nice photo!” or “Thanks!” or just send an emoji just as meaningless as @devilgate has suggested the Likes are? Aren’t likes just a short hand way of saying “Nice photo!”?
Instagram has a feature to disable like and comments on a post. Why can’t we have that here?
Since @manton isn’t interested in algorithms then all the arguments made here about that are moot. There are no algorithms on micro.blog to exploit user behavior. That argument keeps coming up and it’s a distraction.
I think @Havn is asking for a way to receive some high fives that THEY can personally see. They are not asking for the feature to be forced on anyone.
Let’s resolve to think of ways for @Havn request to be fulfilled and let go of the “You can’t have that thing because I am morally against it even if I never intend to use it and can’t see it”.
Good choice. Micro.blog has too many taboos.
Yeah, exactly - I’d prefer it if people commented on what I’m actually suggested, heh. 
Some of the things, where Micro.blog goes against the grain, are for the better. But we shouldn’t not do things just because others are doing it - if it’s a good idea.
And things like boosts, “appreciations” and turning on link previews in the timeline, are things that could be made in a way so that people who don’t want it doesn’t need to ever see it. 