Just realised that on Mastodon, boosting *is* the algorithm.

There's no code trying to cleverly show me stuff it reckons I'd be into, based on what my contacts are into, instead my contacts are saying "I like this, I bet my contacts would like it too" and that is way smarter than any algorithm.

Thank you, boosters!

@sarajw what bothers me as a former Twitter algorithm user is how favorites are basically pointless; at best they serve as a voluntary "read receipt". I want a machine to learn from what I'm doing, highlight things that appeal to me personally. I need tools to manage all the novelty in the world!
@schizanon they're not at all useless on an interpersonal level :)