Ironically, I've replied to several people using physical thumbs up/down recently. This can be caused by several variations on voice not being viable at the moment:

* sore throat

* eating

* having another conversation

* context demands silence (often requires the question to be nonverbal somehow, but not e.g. if the context is "sleeping baby right next to me")

* noisy room (often asymmetric)

* target is deaf

I use nonverbals frequently as well, but I think what 0xDEAFBEAD is getting at is more like if everyone were to walk around with a touch display hanging from a lanyard where you could like or dislike every comment. The simulacrum would cheapen the real experience by its very presence.

Exactly. These metrics are supposed to help filter for "quality", but popularity isn't that great as a proxy for quality, and the metrics have the side effect of turning social interaction into a constant status competition.

https://xcancel.com/AliceFromQueens/status/11280356337279303...