I think the way it’s implemented is good. You can get your validation by seeing the upvotes on a single post or comment, but since the basic interface itself doesn’t total them, people aren’t as driven to say things just for the upvotes. It’s like those speed signs that tell you how fast you’re going: if you measure something like that, people will try to get the “top score” (which is why most of those have been replaced with ones that just say “too fast” over a certain speed).

Since the counts are there, individual apps can sum them up and display that, but it’s not basic to Lemmy.