The fact that life's instabilities (ever-present job re-locations, financial limitations, existing friendships, or the lack thereof, strained group dynamics, deaths, and many other factors) have less of an impact on online social media would seem to make it the ideal tool for consistently providing such conversations over a long period of time.

But, while good conversation may be what many of us long for from social media, few seem to be finding it. Many who are old enough to remember the Internet of the 1990's and early 2000's would do almost anything to re-experience the interactions they enjoyed there.

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Wahaha wrote on March 10, 2023 at 12:31 PM

#5,585

The problem is that a community does not scale. It's trivial to get along well with ten other people. It is utterly impossible to get along well with ten million other people.

HMTg927 OP wrote on March 11, 2023 at 6:40 PM

#5,586

Wahaha,

I have some ideas about how to enable better communities on sites that are not small. One is to allow users to follow each other but limit the number of people each user can follow to 150 (Dunbar's number). I hope this will cause users to naturally clump together in small groups that will become their online social circle.

Wahaha wrote on March 14, 2023 at 7:38 AM

#5,587

Replying to (#5,586)

So you could follow someone who doesn't follow you and never get a reply back?

Reddit already was a shot at this problem with all the subreddits and we see how that scaled.

Also, you need to shoot lower than Dunbar, since that includes people you socialize with in RL. (Family, work, friends)

HMTg927 OP wrote on March 17, 2023 at 8:58 PM

#5,590

Replying to (#5,587)

Yes, you could follow someone who is not following you, but you could always adjust who you are following. Being limited to 150 would cause you to naturally think about whether you should remove people from your "follow" list who are perhaps not interested in following you. When you have a limited number of slots you will be more careful with them than if you have, say, 1000 slots.

Wahaha wrote on March 19, 2023 at 10:31 AM

#5,592

Replying to (#5,590)

It might work, but then all you do is create better filter bubbles around people.

HMTg927 OP wrote on March 22, 2023 at 3:09 PM

#5,595

Replying to (#5,592)

Well, you could look at it that way, but remember that a community is a filter bubble of sorts anyway. However, people who realize that would always have the option of reading the unblocked unfollowed feed. In other words, they could just read everything.