Visible Upvotes. Hear me out. Upvotes much like Facebook/Instagram/Twitter Likes tickle the reward center of our brains and trigger the dopamine response. This in turns incentivizes users behavior more towards "validation seeking" types of behavior, such as DAE/AmITheAsshole/TIL pandering to commonly held beliefs, calls outs (legitimate or questionable), trauma dumping, etc. Whether we like it or not, the mechanics of social media websites/apps influence our behavior, sometimes we are not even aware our or other's behavior is being coerced by these sites. The fewer dopamine-rewarding features that Kbin/Lemmy has, the more we can focus on the content.