Very true! But even then, the dynamic is a bit different. Reply-links on a post that's an obvious joke are analogous to upvotes, but reply-links on a politically controversial topic could be anything, though most likely disagreements. Plus the absolute number is going to be orders of magnitudes smaller than likes.
But I do agree it's contributed to bait posts a lot, yeah. Interesting to see the impact of such a seemingly small UX change.
Interesting because from a functional user experience perspective, it's an objectively useful feature for navigating discussions. An obvious addition in terms of web design, yet with unforeseen repercussions. The medium is the message, after all.