Excepts votes cost nothing while morons spend money on an icon instead of just saying thanks. Bit of a difference there.

No, it separated the bad comments from the good for free. The stupid icons were free just long enough to get morons addicted and thinking saying the words “thanks that was very valuable/helpful” wasn’t enough and they had to get the dopamine rush of patting themselves on the back for getting and receiving equally useless golden upvotes.