When I look at Mastodon posts, I see a decent amount of replies and boosts for popular posts, but not very many stars (see example image). I assumed a star is the same as a like, but I feel not a lot of people star a post, whereas I did see a lot of hearts/likes on Twitter posts. Are they not equivalent?
In addition to what the others said, there was a „campaign“ a while ago that you should boost and not favorite on Mastodon.
Since there’s no algorithm that promotes liked posts in the timeline, liking something doesn’t do a whole lot.
I never understood this logic.
I've been on Mastodon since 2016 and never really got into Twitter. I just don't understand why the "algorithm" matters. Who cares if people who don't follow you see your post? I want my followers to see my posts, and then favorites allow me to know that my followers liked what I posted. It's a nice dopamine boost and helps me feel closer to my community.
A lot of posts I make unboostable as well (followers only). "Promotion" doesn't really factor much into my use of Mastodon so much as being "social".
On Masotdon, likes don't do anything to extend the reach of a post or make it popular in an algorithm like Twitter. It's literally just a regular like/favorite button, so use it if you want to like/favorite a post.
Edit: also yes, federation as others have said.
