Besides possible fake 'credibility' boosts this may impact your Edgerank etc. thus acting like social media SEO booster. I think some external services evaluate their rankings on number of likes as well.
Yeap, it won't drive any traffic to your website. But if your visiting an online store and you see a lot of likes under the product then this might cloud your judgement ;)
"But if your visiting an online store and you see a lot of likes under the product then this might cloud your judgement ;)"
I give it 12-24 months before the DoJ/FTC deem Facebook `Likes` illegal under antitrust law, for the exact logic you just laid out. It's a clear antitrust violation because it's a way for firms to mislead customers about the quality of their product.
Just wanted to add, that this hack was verified for external links and pages - it's still to be tested whether it could be applied to FB comments, pages or apps.
