"The death of the newsfeed" by Benedict Evans https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2018/4/2/the-death-of-the-newsfeed

This makes an interesting case against the chronological timeline.

I think on Mastodon anyway, lists are what make the chronological timeline usable. Right now I have a curated list of 10-15 people who I think are really interesting, and whose toots I don't want to miss.

Whereas the Home timeline is more like this big gushing river I can dip my toes into every once in awhile when I'm bored. And if I miss something, no big deal.

Having accounts on different instances is also a great way to tame the chronological timeline. My mastodon.social and freedom.horse timelines are pure silliness, which I occasionally need as a respite from the dry tech stuff I follow on toot.cafe.

Evans' point about how "normal people" don't want to curate their feeds is probably right, though. Algorithmic timelines offer the tantalizing possibility that you can have your cake and eat it too. "Follow as many people as you want! We'll just show you the good stuff."

When I was on Twitter I totally fell into that trap, following 1000+ people and just hoping the algorithm would take care of the noise. Unfortunately once you've reached that point, it's almost impossible to switch to curation.

Maybe someday Mastodon could have an algorithmic timeline. At least unlike Twitter/Facebook, it'd be open-source and auditable. But I kind of suspect most Mastodonians would rebel against that, since they're explicitly joining Mastodon because they want *more* control over their online feeds.

I guess the question is whether curation/filing really is for the geeks and the power users, and "normal" people will always want an algorithm to do the work for them.