The question is not so easy to answer. HN's 'Like' Counts somewhat helps rank content and thus save me time to check out the top stories. It's not bullet proof

The question is not so easy to answer. HN's 'Like' Counts somewhat helps rank content and thus save me time to check out the top stories. It's not bullet proof and many great posts get lost. But it's somewhat of a helpful tool to organise information. The same goes for Google search results. One could say they are organised by 'likes' (how many pages link to that particular page). So while on the surface, the gut reaction is YES. Kill the like button. The reality is that it's somewhat of a useful mechanism as well to quickly find what's relevant in the sea of content.