Jack Conte: "major platforms [...] began ranking posts based on user engagement, which [...] changed the nature of these sites from a place to discover creators to a recommendation machine that only promotes content that the ranking algorithm thinks users should see."

This is the thing I think people miss about Fedi. The algorithm has never worked. Never, ever, ever. People think it's okay for companies like Google to collect every bit of entropy they've produced because they believe it will ultimately reciprocate with better content, but I think it's obvious, now, that is only applicable to the parties who want to capitalize on your data and not to the consumer themselves; e.g. advertisers, insurance brokers, the government. Followers and subscriptions are fundamentally different than a recommendation algorithm. In the case of YouTube, they may even be antithetical to each other, given that the algorithm takes precedent over subscribing to a channel, so viewers oftentimes miss certain content a channel produces.

Ranking-based content also carries the political baggage of taking responsibility for what the users of a platform are recommended. There is a constant deluge of different agendas influencing the kind content users are recommended while denying the autonomy and discernment of the users themselves.

https://observer.com/2024/03/patreon-ceo-jack-conte-interview-sxsw/