Some (presumably new) Mastodon users seem to be gaslighting themselves into not favoriting posts just because it does not push post futher since there is no alghorithm.

Just remember that all of this numbers don't have a real world value except showing that someone read your post and liked it. Boosts have a side effect of pushing post futher to followers of a person but it's effect is becoming lesser once you boost too much, so it's better to reserve it for urgent posts and ones you think you just cannot not boost after seeing it.

Favorites and reactioms (Pleroma has unicode reactions, custom emoji ones are Akkoma, Misskey and Misskey-based software specific) are just a virtual headpat you can give person. With or without replies and boosts, it's still very heartwarming to get those.