it’s never just ads or subscriptions, it’s a shitty integrated fucking garbage algoritm driven with content you don’t want to see shown to you, the interface is ALWAYS shittier and worse, no explanation, just that it looks ‘modern’
i’m so fucking sick of it lads
Because they care about one metric: time spent watching ads.
If they only show you chronological - for example - there is a risk you open the app, find that nothing has happened (or what happened is of low quality). Controlling what you see makes it easier to also ensure there’s always a reason to visit the page. Leaving it all to recency or popularity or something means handing over the control of your time.
And it’s always going to piss off people but the important part is what it does for the big masses (which likely is - more time spent watching ads)
That’s something that’s been really nice about using Mastodon. It just shows you what you ask it to show you. There’s 0 time wasted scrolling through content you never asked for hoping that the good stuff might accidentally bubble to the surface at some point.