I really hope that nobody here is actually surprised that that is the true purpose of the 'like' button. After all, the users get just about nothing out of it,

I really hope that nobody here is actually surprised that that is the true purpose of the 'like' button. After all, the users get just about nothing out of it, if you like something that much an email will do just as well (to the select number of people that you think your liking a particular subject will appeal to). The main winners are the publishers (they hope for some more traffic) and facebook (by extending your profile, not just by being able to count the 'likes' but also by the lesser value of those sites that you simply visit). Like buttons and other third party javascript are a huge vector for privacy violations, basically any website that places any kind of third party javascript on their pages is giving full control over the privacy of their users to the party that hosts the javascript component. If that party also happens to host a service that a large number of people have signed up for at some point in the past, and that they are possibly signed in to right this minute the potential for abuse is staggering.