TerrorBite :verified: (@[email protected])

@[email protected] Boosts are for discovery. Here's the way it works: Let's say your instance is brand new. You make your first post; it's only visible on your instance though, as no other instances know (or care) about yours. You tell a friend on instance Alpha about your new account. They follow your profile with their account. Now a link is established; your posts will now be sent to Alpha so that your friend's account can see them. As a side effect, your public posts now become visible in Alpha's federated posts feed, so anyone browsing Alpha can see them. Then, your friend on Alpha boosts one of your posts. Your friend has followers on Bravo and Charlie (as well as on Alpha itself); now those two instances receive your post so that your friend's followers can see it (and again, if it's a public post, it'll end up in the federated timeline on those instances). But they only receive that ONE post; unless a user on Bravo or Charlie decides to follow you, then there's no reason for those instances to obtain (and keep a copy of) any of your other posts. Your post might get boosted until it reaches instance Zulu; but even though you reached that far, that one post may be the only post of yours that is ever seen on that instance. It's worth noting that if a user views your boosted post, then they may also end up pulling in all of the replies to that post as well, or the post that it's in reply to. So boosting is not the be-all end-all. It's a good way to get people to see you initially; but you also need to be compelling and give people a reason to follow you, because your future posts may only make it as far as your followers. Keep in mind that the Fediverse is not all about reach, like Twitter often is these days. It's mostly about community. Sure, getting yourself out there to find followers in the first place is important, but once you have them, focus on them. The rest will find you organically. And maybe you don't want to be too popular – the more followers you have, the more load your instance will suffer in trying to send your posts to them all! Thank you for coming to my TED talk