[adparadox]

>Stop trying to make Mastodon be Twitter. If that's what you want, go use Twitter.

I don't see how using an optional, open-source, non-chronological feed means that someone should just "go use Twitter". For one, the incentives are completely different between Twitter which generates revenue based on engaging users (and juicing subsequent algorithms), and someone who builds a separate feed interface for Mastodon.

>I don't get this mentality of "I like X, but I don't want to use X, so imma go turn Y into X" some devs seem to have.

Developers like to solve problems and build things. I've re-created other projects and products lots of times. Why is it a problem what someone chooses to do with their own time for their own reasons?

>Playing into people's FOMO is what got the Internet into the rat's nest

Disagree. Incentives tied to advertising-based business models is the root cause here, not FOMO.

Disclaimer: I made my own alternative timeline for Mastodon as well, so I'm pretty biased. :)

[0xEF]

Bias aside, you present fair counters to my position. However, I still think the leveraging of FOMO is what drives us in the wrong direction with social media. If the market (us, basically) had the general attitude of "if I miss a post, I miss a post, oh well" the advert-based models wouldn't be as effective as they are, incentive would shrink, and we'd probably have an Internet that was closer to the original intention. That, however, is strong speculation on my part and I am hyper-aware of that, but having watched social media (as an adult) emerge and become what it is today, it's exceedingly difficult for me to unsee that pattern.

We can perhaps agree to disagree on that, but I'm considering your other points.

[_heimdall]

Just my two cents, but I've always viewed FOMO and the ad-based algorithm as two sides of a feedback loop.

FOMO is the psychological response that the ad-based algorithm is playing off of, neither one is the problem in and of itself.