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by milesrout 422 days ago
The result of a purely chronological feed is that you have to scroll through 10 posts from the same person and never see anything from people that post good content rarely.

Plenty of people like and enjoy "algorithmic feeds". I can enjoy occasionally scrolling through a feed. Banning it is like banning alcohol because there are alcoholics in society.

If you can't handle it, switch it off.

6 comments

> The result of a purely chronological feed is that you have to scroll through 10 posts from the same person and never see anything from people that post good content rarely.

I follow over 700 accounts on Bluesky and strictly use the following feed, and this is not my experience.

Obviously there’s a balance to be struck here. We could legalise fentanyl and tell people to just not use it, but that probably wouldn’t have a very positive impact on society.

At the very least we should acknowledge the negative externalities. Just leaving it up to the market to figure out (especially if we allow the current tech monopolies to exist) will result in serious societal impact.

"The result of a purely chronological feed is that you have to scroll through 10 posts from the same person and never see anything from people that post good content rarely."

But who made the demand, to have everything shown from everyone?

Imagine a social network, where you make your own rules for your feed. That special person who posts rarely, but good will have special visibility. And from that bored family member that basically spams, you will see the message "X has posted 50 pictures and text today" and with a click you can go there.

Having algorithmic feeds as an option, not the default, would be a huge step forward
Alcohol consumption is gated behind age laws.

There are society level effects based on the consumption of several goods and services.

Gambling, alcohol, drugs, for example.

The individuals story, in aggregate, mm impacts, over and over, has effects that we must address when arguing for the optimal friction for that good.

Scrolling on social media isn't like any of those things.
Plenty of people like and enjoy "algorithmic feeds".

Plenty of people like heroin too. Liking something doesn't make it good.