@alan @feld @alex @Moon algorithms are needed for everything, if your brain didn't have an algorithm to see you would just see white (pink?) noise, but instead your brain parses out signals and creates a 3d mapping that you can use. eventually fedi needs these kinds of things because it becomes too noisy and costly to be usable. contrived example but imagine trying to host your own node and the fog of war isn't good enough and your server costs for a single person are astronomical because you have no way of filtering out what you receive and your database explodes just because you followed the wrong person