Hearts

I would really like to have an option to disable the "hearts" on posts and on comments that I create. Like, just make it completely unavailable. I know people find the presence of a "like" button useful, but I don't particularly like the feature.

I don't think its conducive to conversation. People will like a comment without providing any kind of feedback and I don't think it's because they don't have an opinion, it's because the option allows them to be lazy about their input. I think this creates posts that comment wastelands. It's not because the content isn't good, I think it's because participation is inadvertently deterred.

It also creates an atmosphere of popularity (isn't that a Reddit thing? Is it ok for imzy to be different?) which highlights agreeance, which not totally what I'm looking for. It's really not what I'm looking for at all. I would like (polite) dissent/conversation/objection. But right now, I see one comment with 8 "hearts". What does that even mean? Not much, I think.

I know it's a comfort to former Reddit users to have features similar to a site that they used to like, and maybe imzy is intent on keeping that feature because there are advantages that are seen other than being similar to other social media sites (what are they?), but it would be nice if I could have the option to create posts and comments that don't promote passive feedback or empty (?) popularity. I'd rather have a reply to a comment or a comment on a post than a "heart".

I'm not saying to take away the feature for everyone (although....why not?), I'm just asking to have to option to not participate in that system.

What do you think?