Likes are 100% never going anywhere. They provide a means for Google/FB/whoever to categorize you. The instant you click 'like' on a post about the latest pro-Dems thing, or on a post organizing a pro-life rally, or on something a band posted, they instantly know a lot about you. (Or more specifically, the algorithms begin acting as if they know a lot about you.) Every time you click 'like,' you are fine-tuning the company's profile of you. Maybe at one point they were about rewarding opinions or something, but in today's big-data-driven social networks, they are entirely about categorization for ads.