If you follow 100 people who post 3 times a day, that's 300 posts. You're awake 16 hours a day, so an average of ~18 posts per hour, or 1 every 3 minutes. Many users follow way more people and/or follow accounts which post much more often.
Having a non-algorithmic feed means that posters will see low levels of engagement and users will quickly be overwhelmed with their reading list, and miss most of the posts. It's a vicious circle which will cause both writers and readers to eventually give up.
If, on the other hand, posts are ranked based on user popularity and engagement and that rank affects its position in subscriber feeds, then it's a virtuous cycle where more people will be directed to interesting posts, and those posters will be incentivised to post more.
This is why Mastodon has seen its usage drop after their initial surge earlier this year. We don't have time to wade through a firehouse of random posts every day.
> If, on the other hand, posts are ranked based on user popularity and engagement and that rank affects its position in subscriber feeds, then it's a virtuous cycle where more people will be directed to interesting posts, and those posters will be incentivised to post more.
... or it's a vicious cycle when someone understand which kind of cheaply generated content games the recommandation system the best. If history has told us anything, it's that radical, divisive, tribal, infuriating, titilating, voyeuristic, trivial, scammy, stupid short form tends to works very well.
I don’t disagree in any way. But in the short term, an algorithmic feed will be the only way to make the service “sticky”. But yes, any algorithm can and will be gamed and it’s a cat and mouse game from that point on.
If you follow 100 people who post 3 times a day, that's 300 posts. You're awake 16 hours a day, so an average of ~18 posts per hour, or 1 every 3 minutes. Many users follow way more people and/or follow accounts which post much more often.
Having a non-algorithmic feed means that posters will see low levels of engagement and users will quickly be overwhelmed with their reading list, and miss most of the posts. It's a vicious circle which will cause both writers and readers to eventually give up.
If, on the other hand, posts are ranked based on user popularity and engagement and that rank affects its position in subscriber feeds, then it's a virtuous cycle where more people will be directed to interesting posts, and those posters will be incentivised to post more.
This is why Mastodon has seen its usage drop after their initial surge earlier this year. We don't have time to wade through a firehouse of random posts every day.