Even as someone who currently has a paid account (but only because there was a huge discount), I agree with other commenters that this is total bullshit.
The fact that viewing who liked you is a paid feature means that to users who don’t pay, the site has become effectively useless. I know that I won’t be continuing my paid account — I’ve already canceled the subscription. It’s just a matter of time until everything expires. Once that happens, I’ll probably stop using the site entirely. I have only made one worthwhile connection in the last four years and that was pure luck and tenacity on my part.
I’m a Sr. Software Engineer (and DevOps Engineer/Architect) with a SaaS company — I can smell a “let’s drop this feature in order to get more paid users” scheme from a mile away, and let me tell you… this reeks of it.
I’m incredibly disappointed that you would cripple the site functionality like this.
