cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/4150119
The assumption is that centrally managed social media is bad because their algorithm is bad. But actually, they are bad because they are centrally managed and force one algorithm onto you. I’m not even advocating algorithm-by-choice. Even instance-specific algorithms would already work and would make the whole experience much more enjoyable and less boring. And if an instance’s algorithm(s) is too aggressive, it gets defederated. That would result in a much more exciting experience imo. And by the way: what’s the problem with getting old posts back in the timeline if it makes the overall conversation more interesting?
On the site formerly (and still) known as Twitter, I missed a lot because it did not show me everything from accounts I followed.
On Mastodon, I miss a lot because I wasn’t browsing my feed at the right time.
This would matter less on Mastodon if my feed was endless and I could browse it until I’d caught up with everything new. But it is not endless, so I can’t.
I don’t see how you can have multiple instances all injecting stuff into my feed, which is what the (other) OP seems to be suggesting? I don’t want any kind of algorithm deciding what I see and definitely not some kind of hyper-competitive inter-instance competition for my attention. But I wouldn’t mind if Mastodon worked out what I hadn’t yet seen from the accounts I follow and put it into my feed while I’m actually browsing it.