We've been deceived for years with post upvotes artificially inflated and then we get surprised at the end of the dopamine crash with posts in a more normal range
I remember that day on reddit when the top posts were like 3000 upvotes and then all of a sudden the next one was like 100,000 . They said they 'fixed' the algorithm.
That was the beginning of the end. It was written on the wall that they were doing it to pander for the marketing execs whose only goal is to see NUMBER GO UP.