Is Mastodon’s strictly chronological news feed based on a wrong assumption?
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?
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Exactly why I stopped using Facebook because it was damned near impossible to have a chronological timeline on the app.
In my case the algorithm bored the heck out of me. I stopped using Facebook since 2015. Even the youtube algorithm has started boring me now and I am happy with newpipe.
It wasn’t the only reason I left FB, but it was on the list.
I think I was trying to find out about a news event that had recently happened in our community (the community groups in Facebook are still a decent resource for local news) and getting the stupid app to show me a chronological timeline of the group was damned near impossible. I mean, I know it's possible to do it, but it frustrated me to no end that it was turned into a more difficult process than it needed to be.
After that, I said 'screw this place'. I know that we are all the product on Facebook, but I didn't mind surrendering to ads and all that stuff until it became a product that stopped being useful to me.