(Fisrt time posting on Lemmy, please be patient)
I don’t know if it was also like this before, but I feel like recently every social media is focused on getting comments, likes, views, people sharing your post, being popular, when the before that (late 199X- mid 201x) was more about being unique and just sharing your own creations and remixes. What makes me feel like this is that whenever I (rarely) open Twitter and go to the homepage most of the posts are something baiting the viewer into commenting or sharing. When your post doesn’t has many interactions or views, you’re deemed as “a failure”. It seems like the (anti)social media is empty with baits and overshared memes. Long gone were the days of being original without having to directly copy someone to have validation and recognition.
I think this is why Reddit/Lemmy is a great model. Even though “the algorithm” drives for engagement, it’s still community based. Pick the communities you want to see and it’s a radically different experience
And the algorithms for Lemmy seem simple enough in my experience. You sort by active to see what people are actually engaging in, sort by hot if you wanna see what’s building momentum (not sure if that’s actually it but that’s what it feels like) and sort by new if you just wanna basically see internet stream of consciousness