The most common answer I see is something along the lines of “it’s the equivalent of liking a post on twitter”. It seems that this is not the case, as the Mastodon devs seem rather adamant that they don’t want “likes” in Mastodon. Perhaps it’s a method of saving posts? Well, that doesn’t make sense either, since there is already the ability to “Bookmark” a post to save it.
It really just seems like a “Favorite” is just a bookmark that tells the poster, and the public that you bookmarked the post. And even if this was the reasoning – which is baffling enough as it is – it wouldn’t make sense since the whole point of boosting something is to tell the public that you like a post.
It really seems like the “Favorite” button has no actual unique purpose. In my honest opinion, Mastodon should just federate “Likes” like normal, and be done with it.
As stated in my post, Mastodon officially does not federate “Likes”. So, to call it a “Like” makes little to no sense, to me. Why treat something as a “Like” if it isn’t actually a “Like”? And if the users do actually want to treat is as a “Like”, then why not just federate them like normal?
The functionality already exists through Boosts, and Bookmarks.
If someone from another instance likes your toot, you’ll get it. You don’t see likes of posts from other instances, but you’ll get every like for your posts from wherever they come from.
If I like a photo from a friend he made on his/her holiday, I send him/her a star. There’s no reason to share this picture with my followers, nor to bookmark it.