I can’t quite figure out the purpose of the votes here and I think I just prefer to comment instead of giving an up/down.

I think the up/down thing also promotes shorter comments, at least it did for me, since I know it can be hard to totally agree with someone who is making several points so I tried to keep it short and to the point. Which is dumb, because difficult topics are complex and deserve more words thrown at them not less.

Maybe the utility of the votes for me is when I don’t know what I want to say in a reply, but I want to express something. Then I vote.