The biggest problem for me with the commercial social networks is the use of algorithms to try and spoon feed me with stuff.
I hate that. Let me follow people or stuff I like and then give me that in a chronological order, that's all I want. Stop injecting other stuff in my own curated feed, it really shouldn't be so hard..
Know what algorithm I want? Order by date created, descending. That's all I need. I'm okay if there is also a ranking by activity to show what's active.
I do not need social media to do anything else, no priority, no ranked users, no suggested posts. I want the raw feed, sorted by date created descending.
This is exactly what made me leave Instagram years ago. When they changed it so you only get the algorithmic feed. I can't stand it, why can't we just choose the fucking sort order we want?? These platforms give users no control and it's what makes them so frustrating to try to use. Reddit was the last "social" platform I was really using and now that's gone to shit too.
You can still get your follower feed in chronological order by clicking the instagram logo in the corner and selecting Followers or whatever it says. Can't make it the default though and it really sucks.
i also absolutely feel this way, but i think more people like ~the algorithms~ than people like us suspect. you have no idea how many new people i’ve seen complain about this on mastodon. people show up, see a blank feed that they have to make an effort to populate, and turn around and leave. i think a lot of people enjoy frictionless spoonfed content a la the tiktok for you page these days…
Aside from it sounding as horrible as Facebook, the rush of new users is probably because a) Instagram users can go straight in, b) curiosity, and c) oh god what is Elon thinking. They probably aren't aware of Mastodon. Or Lemmy.
That's a fair assessment.
I think it's a), but only because who has an Instagram account, automatically has a Threads account. There is no other way that 70 million people "joined" in just 3 days.
They are generally counting installations of the app. So it does take conscious effort to be one of the counted. But it's certainly less friction than most new services.
Meta/Insta/Threads has already confirmed that both chronological sort and "Follow Only" view are in the works.
good to know, but it speaks a lot about their priorities that neither was there on launch, imo.
Meanwhile the fediverse microblogging alternatives have either three or four timelines, none of them algorithm-driven
That sounds useless
Someone on Mastodon raised a good point that the idea of "changing handles" is incompatible with a lot of fedi, too. I'm curious how they will tackle that problem when they eventually federate
Is the ability to change handles something that you want?
Me personally? Not really. But it's definitely a feature I've heard folks wanting.
Relaxed section for discussion and debate that doesn't fit anywhere else. Whether it's advice, how your week is going, a link that's at the back of your mind, or something like that, it can likely go here.
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