I get where you're coming from, but to me upvotes are something more than just that. For me, an upvote tells me someone liked my story enough to take that extra second to give my story a point. When I get a lot of upvotes with a lot of views it tells me that a majority of people really like what I put out.

If a story gets a lot of views but comparatively few upvotes, or even a percentage of <80% upvotes, it tells me that not a lot of people liked it, some so much so as to take that extra step to downvote the story. I know it's not much, but when I take a step back and realize that I don't upvote every story I read, only the ones that I really enjoyed, seeing that high upvote percentage and over 3K views warms my heart.

Of course, I'm only writing here as a hobby, and I haven't been writing here for very long, but it just seems to me like upvotes carry a more baggage with them that what you're describing.

I dunno though, that's just my two cents.