I assumed that they removed the views counter because sometimes it made Steemit look like it lacked engagement. Often times I would have 20 to 30 upvotes and only 1 or 2 views. I think these were mostly upvotes from steemfollower and steemengine. But a few of these votes could also have been coming from people mindlessly upvoting stuff in their feed without bothering to actually read it.