One major division between social platforms seems to be whether you govern what you read, or whether the people you follow govern what you read. Only the latter lends itself to numbers-driven meme culture, but corporations recognized the addictive potential of such numbers, and as a result most platforms now follow the latter approach.

There was a time when I maintained a presence on each major site (except Facebook, to hell with them), so I could be there for those times when a friend sobbed into the void. And I was able to be there for several such moments; heartbreakingly, I was typically the only one there, despite dozens or hundreds of followers on their account. I was also able to help out lots of people during the pandemic.

These follower-driven sites are time-consuming by design, yet provide inadequate reward for time spent there, unless you happen to be one of the lucky or privileged few whose posts make numbers. Now I've chosen to only spend time on the platforms I like (Dreamwidth, Furaffinity and Discord), hoping that my friends have grown enough to reach out to me should they need help.