People like new chapters because the story is on the front page for a few minutes and that is where many random readers (who may not have read your story before) find it.
Unless they are looking for some specific niche, readers are less likely to go read stuff that isn't on the front page.
If anything, readers who find an old story because they like its niche would leave /more/ likes than people who just trawl the most recently updated stories.
I suspect that instead I got most of my likes from people who favourited my story. Once I stopped posting updates, those people disappeared, and they took their likes with them.
Views also dropped a lot, but not as much as likes did. In the 10 days before I posted the last chapter, the story got about 1000 views/day. Afterwards: 340 views/day. Whereas it went from 148 likes/day in the same 10 days, to zero, zip, nada.
I think it's a matter of repeat senders; someone can view a chapter multiple times (I think, anyways) but only like it once. Also, aside from front page priviledge, the audience for any recent chapters are gonna be the people who actually enjoy you as an author and have notifications on for you, who are WAY more likely to leave a like.
I think another aspect is that you need an account to leave likes, people who come to the site often are more likely to have an account, and people who come to the site often are more likely to see your story early than people who don't.
Then when you stop posting updates, your readers-with-accounts stop reading (because they've already read everything), and your likes stop coming in too.
Comments on Profile Post by TheLowKing