December 21, 2023 at 7:25:39 PM UTC

	Since	posts	replies	likes	reposts and quotes	views
Bluesky	May 2023	1,039	8,236	23,127	2,380
Mastodon	Nov 2022	2,399	29,156	55,396	16,820
GitHub	Jul 2010	179	5,777 3,520	33,866	3,317
npm	Jul 2014	139	1,546			75,991,720
YouTube	Dec 2015	30		1,203		32,713
Letterboxd	Mar 2026	55
Blog	Nov 2025	20
Hacker News	Jan 2011	59	575	802
All	Jul 2010	4,807	37,967	114,394	22,517	76,024,433

After over a year of using Mastodon almost exclusively for social media—it’s *still* a shock to go back to visit an algorithmically-driven social network.

Scrolling and reading on other sites feels like eating a candy bar while drinking a soda—the candy bar has very little flavor—your taste buds are already overloaded by sugar.

And yet sugar is the algorithmically incentivized form of content, so sugary posts are the only ones that get traction.

15 replies

Raymond Camden 2 min later

@zachleat gee thanks, now i want a candy bar :>
1. Zach Leatherman 2 min later
  
  @raymondcamden *looks up from my soda*
૮༼⚆︿⚆༽つ / Wildan 7 min later

@zachleat If you didn't keep scrolling the algorithm can't give you recommendation due to lack of data.
But if you keep scrolling the algorithm will give you crypto bros 🏌️
1. Zach Leatherman 8 min later
  
  @drsensor where did all the NFT people go
tbeseda 24 min later

@zachleat Okay I opened it. For science…
Way more ads than I remember - not good ones. Like the dropship junk I see on TikTok.
Lots of people I don't follow with posts that I don't really "get” - shallow philosophy quotes.
Lots of complaining from people I do follow - probably says as much about me as them.
So many AI-gen avatars - yes, I had one too once.
Only real value is in the gamer types I follow there - posts about new stuff I like.
If this is sugar it's like aspartame 🤢
Josh Wayne 28 min later

@zachleat I can literally feel my cortisol spiking. Algorithms are sometimes nice for discovery, but it's something I wanna dip into occasionally not something I have to use.
1. Zach Leatherman 33 min later
  
  @joshwayne *same*
Thord D. Hedengren 2 hr later

@zachleat It's interesting, I never got into Mastodon. I'm sort of trying, I guess, but it's not flying. Who should I follow and where do I find them? I hate being part of an instance. Surfacing of content is lacking, which is a feature as much as a bug. I'm stumped. I mean, I don't need a social network at all, but it's nice to chat a bit, and sometimes dive deeper into an interesting or important discussion. To me, here, the hurdle is huge. That's probably a huge deal to the non-techy masses.
1. Zach Leatherman 2 hr later
  
  @tdh for sure—that makes sense. And I do hope they make things more approachable—I think it’ll happen *if* they keep momentum. A bit of a chicken and egg problem though!
  1. Thord D. Hedengren 2 hr later
    
    @zachleat Yeah, that's probably it. There's a void now though, I'm glad there is at least approachable apps out there.
ThomasAPowell 2 hr later

@zachleat Nice analogy. I've often suggested to students who talk to me about online behavior that you need to have a broad and balanced information diet. Using algo sites like Twitter, Insta, and TikTok only is like eating a vast amount of intellectual junk food. Sure, it is tasty, often super spicy, and quite addictive, but it is not very healthy for you long term. They seem to get this advice as reasonable and empowering as opposed to scolding--they actively choose vs passively consume.
1. Zach Leatherman 2 hr later
  
  @thomasapowell Well said! Basically: “you can have a little algorithmic content, as a treat” 😅
Sparr 1 day later

@zachleat Many people in my social circles get upset at me for "only" "always" posting about controversial issues, hot takes, etc. The algorithms between us hide all the other posts I would rather they engage on, and make me look much worse to them :(
1. Zach Leatherman 1 day later
  
  @sparr truly the sword of damocles hangs over us all 😱
Eaton 1 day later

@zachleat I remember one of the early critiques of mastodon’s feed was from a Twitter engineer who explained that it would never work, because it didn’t deliver what people “wanted” — but after rounds of discussion, it became clear that he was talking about “what people endlessly click on.”