I hope Lemmy's internet points never become a thing people view as important. The way people act on Reddit to get a handful of up votes is embarrassing.
Yeah it exists in the metadata, so certain front ends can display it and other platforms like Mbin and PieFed show it as a reputation score or something like that.
I think the way that Lemmy handles it is perfect, there's no reason to display the cumulative score and it definitely acts as a barrier to free and open discussion because people start censoring themselves and judging other users by their profile rather than the things they actually say.
I like vote counts on posts, because they help me understand what sort of content the community likes, and what sorts I should just not post again. But a cumulative total on my profile? I really don't care.