If we had an open source algorithm for Mastodon/Pixelfed that learned based on the words in the post and image/video we could have a Following + For You feed that showed you all the posts from people you follow and you could choose to see, say, 1 recommended For You post after every 3 posts from your Following feed. With the option to disable For You posts completely or tweak how often you see these.

Discovering new people to follow on mastodon/pixelfed isn’t great (hashtags are rarely used and make posts look ugly) so I still occasionally use twitter because I often discover new indie animators/gamedevs showing off their project making it really nice to browse the For You feed.

  • pogosort@kbin.social
    5·
    1 year ago

    I don’t think there will be mainstream appeal until it is easy and fun to use for the average person

    This is the reality that doesn’t get acknowledged in a lot of FOSS projects. An opt-out for algorithm dislikers such as myself should be enough to satisfy everyone.