Good for the soul, bad for business?

Instagram is removing likes..or at least testing it in select regions- so how does this impact digital marketing? 

CEO Adam Mosseri has announced that Instagram, a social media application for sharing videos and photos, is going to begin hiding the 'likes' feature with some countries/regions already seeing differences. For the everyday user this may mean a bit more confidence and less anxiety on the popularity of posts but for businesses and influencers that rely on this as a measure of a captive/engaged audience it may mean less transparency and impact.

For one thing, users will still be able to 'like' posts thus showing the direct individual they are engaged and actually like the post and the publisher will be able to view who has liked the post. This creates a more authentic relationship between the two and can still capture engagement/captive audience but my question is how will businesses select influencers? Likes is one of the easiest methods to find applicable influencers and promote products to broader audiences and without it they will need to rely perhaps more opaque measures such as followers and just comments which appear to be more difficult to use.

On a brighter note however, with the pressure of likes removed I would imagine the authenticity of posts to re-emerge without the concern of how popular your message or image is- perhaps this will create an ecosystem that is real and thus businesses and individuals will be more keen to interact and follow individuals, products, recommendations, ideas, and advise in an honest way. Instead of consumers liking and following based on others, they will interact and follow what they truly enjoy and find valuable, and that may be what the marketplace really needs.