Bluesky is ushering in a pick-your-own algorithm era of social media

I agree, but some people use social media to follow 1000s of other users. Some kind of “hot right now” or “high engagement since you last logged on” setting might be nice for them.

I think it's super interesting you believe the social companies care about what is 'nice for the user' as opposed to what is nice for the advertisers, audience/data brokers, and the investors.

The reason algorithmic ordering is so common is because that's what gives the most runway for advertising, behavior manipulation/tracking, and its downstream financial effects.

> reason algorithmic ordering is so common is because that's what gives the most runway for advertising

You’re both right. Algorithmic feeds boost engagement, both by surfacing the most-engaging content and removing the burden of trimming one’s follow list, and also aids in serving ads. (Both by making them easier to sneak in and in the same engine that surfaces engaging organic content being useful for serving engaging ads.)

An experience that is super shitty for the user isn't going to result in any users.

If you are trying to take users away from twitter, you're going to focus on some 'nice for the user' things (or, at least, 'nicer than twitter for the user').

Like most things in life, this isn't a binary choice (user or advertiser). They're going to try to optimize for both, striking a balance.

The pattern can be useful for multiple parties, for different reasons, some nefarious. Some users are definitely interested in higher "signal" content, especially when you follow enough accounts that consuming even a small fraction of the content isn't feasible.

Marketshare comes first, then revenue optimization comes later.

Yes. However, an experience that’s okay for the user but also super addictve will result in a lot of users.

This is basically right, but if there's a takeaway from Twitter/X's decline it's that users will only tolerate so much and that platform inertia has its limits.