If you enjoy someone's post on #Mastodon go ahead and click the star. If someone tells you that's meaningless because there's no #algorithm, ignore them. Sure, boost the post too if you want others to also see the post, but don't think telling someone you like what they posted is somehow unimportant. In real life I don't tell someone, "good job," or "well said," or "I love that," for the sake of some algorithm, I do it because I'm human and they are too. It's fundamental to being truly social.
@tuckerteague it would be best to use it like a web browser bookmark. Because you can go back and look at your favorites. Yes, the author will see that you favorited it. But we won't see on a timeline how many people favorited it. If your intent was simply more exposure for the toot, it's best to reply to it, with relevant hashtags, it'll help Federate it better. #HowtoMastodon #makingfriends #TwitterMigration
@nibble4bits I use the like to say I like it. I use the bookmark function to bookmark it. And I use the reply and boost to give it more exposure.