I'm not a creator and I don't use Nostr to consume content from creators. I use Nostr to talk with people and to have conversations. I am interested in people's beliefs, not their content. Frankly I wouldn't care if "notes and other stuff over relays" became just "notes over relays." In fact, I have already disabled loading and displaying media as best I could on my Amethyst client. And yet despite how narrow my interests are, every note I see has a zap button.

Your analogy in your second point is sound, as are your conclusions. If the point of a like or an emoji reaction is just to create positive or negative reinforcement then undermines the conversation. I only ever use these kinds of reactions in order to communicate my thoughts. If you reply to a note then you shouldn't need to like it; your reply should already share your thoughts in far more clarity than a like ever could. I feel just as happy recieving a 💩 or a 🤡 as I do when recieving a ❤.

When I was a kid, adults told me it's wrong to fish for compliments. They were right, and the reason why is obvious. A desire to validate or to be validated undermines the authenticity of any interaction. Desiring likes for personal validation is just the wrong way of using social media. Do you have justification for your own beliefs?