Fair enough. However, over time I can see recurring agreements from likes that helps me connect a name with certain positions. There is repetition that helps me making that connection.
I might not see all their comments in my flow and it saves me time to get a general impression in this format.
Many people don't write a lot of small talk and I'm generally in that category as well. If we remove likes then our feeds become full of short responses that have meaning for us but may be noise for others.