Does buying likes do much for a post?

I understand there has been some changes recently to instagram on going from most recent to a filtered feed for users. I am wondering if pumping a post really has any effect. The benefits I can see are it being placed in the top post hashtags and psychologically someone seeing a popular post and liking it. Personally I have not seen much in the way for results of being top in a hashtag since it seems Instagram is more feed driven. What my concerns are is that a lot of fake likers are skewing who the post is now shown to and instagram limiting likes based on number of followers and comments. Does anyone have some comments to make about recent changes and possible ways to get in filtered feeds?

The activity has to be real, nothing happens if they are bot generated.

So basically follow/unfollow until the cows come home?