[rektide]

This seems like the exact opposite claim to the top post. First we said, sorry, you don't have permission to innovate & explore & connect with people unless you have moderation and control. Ok, yes, this is opt-in following: that's how we moderate.

Now we're saying, sorry, you don't have permissions to innovate & explore & connect with people unless you also admit in the public & get exposed to randos.

In general I think both of these views impose unreasonable limitations & constraint upon people getting out there & trying things. Not all value that is created has to be perfect value, in my humble opinion. Should we try to keep an eye on these factors? Absolutely. To you I'd say, blogrolls (what this effectively is) is generally a pretty good way to explore, that in the blogging era different people would have different blogrolls & it was always fun to cruise around, & check out new people you hadn't checked out before. Even if you didn't end up following that person, they might have their own blogroll that had some interesting people on it. Connectivity, being able to go to different places, is a precondition for diversity, and this unqualifiedly enables connectivity. Worrying about that connectivity being an insular one is premature a concern.