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

If one of the options is "only show me content by people that I have explicitely followed/subscribed to", then I might be interested.

I completely understand why social media companies need to have some kind of an algorithm. Without one, when you first join, your feed would be completely empty and I'm sure that user retention after the first visit would be near zero. I do not understand _at all_ why it isn't at least an option to, at some point, decide I only want to see content from people I have actively selected.

Yes, the following feed is the default.

That's the default feed option. There is no "for you/trending" algorithm on Bluesky.

> If one of the options is "only show me content by people that I have explicitely followed/subscribed to", then I might be interested.

Yes, like most social media, Bluesky has a “Following” feed available (and, unlike many that always start on a different feed, with Bluesky Following can be — and I think is initially — the default feed it opens to.)

I've been on Bluesky for a bit now and this is probably its biggest upside. The "followed" feed is the default and there's options for a "Discover" feed to see related but not subscribed posts and then there's also a "What's Hot Classic" feed which attempts to replicate the old Twitter feed where popular posts are listed with those of relevance to you bumped a bit.

I'll throw out a warning, though, to make sure you tune your settings unless you're ok with seeing buttholes and other risque images. I don't have any followers and it's constantly showing me accounts that post all kinds of sexual content by default. It's probably closer to the supposed "free speech" Twitter is claiming but without all the Nazi stuff.

Not as a single feed. The "Discover" and "What's Hot Classic" feeds duplicate that behavior, if I'm not mistaken.

“Discover”, “What’s Hot Classic”, and “Popular with Friends”, of the Bluesky-provided feeds (there may be others) are different versions of that concept, but there is not one shoved down your throat like on many other social media apps.

>>> I do not understand _at all_ why it isn't an option to, at some point, decide I only want to see content from people I have actively selected.

Probably because browser bookmarks exist.