Think about it this way - what if you post something you know is well made and people will like, but it might take some time to gain some traction? If you have

Think about it this way - what if you post something you know is well made and people will like, but it might take some time to gain some traction? If you have a post sitting there with only a handful of likes, that might prevent potential fans from even checking out your post, simply because it didn't receive a ton of likes very quickly. A private like count that only the original poster can see would better, right? Removing the public count by itself seems like a pretty reasonable and fair way to handle that scenario. It at least prevents some of the worst ways low quality content games the system via purchased likes, bot accounts, etc. Another way to put it - if it's actually popular, that would hopefully show via the content's own merits, and Kardashian-style tactics won't work as well.