One of the things I like about Mastodon vs commercial social networks is that it doesn't TRY TO GET MY ATTENTION every time I open the page or app and offer ALL THESE THINGS I SHOULD BE LOOKING AT that might be relevant to what it thinks my interests are, to make sure I stay online and don't stay away again for sooooo long! (Even if it's only been a few days.)

Seriously, I opened Instagram for the first time in a month or so and I was bombarded with more ads and recommendations than photos from people I was actually following.

I opened an alt profile in Twitter yesterday to post something off the cuff, and all the trending topics, pushing new features, etc were like walking onto the Las Vegas Strip when all you want is a sandwich.

Never mind the normal "you haven't logged onto Twitter in a few hours, here's all the stuff you missed, and look, people are posting new stuff while you're catching up, you'd better keep scrolling!" Compared to Mastodon just showing you the latest that you're actually following. And if you want to fill in what you missed, that's *up to you*

And while I'm griping about Instagram, why the heck are the detailed notification preferences split between the app and the system notification UI?

That's terrible design.

Well, if it's intended for usability, anyway.

If your goal is to make people see more notifications, though... 🙄

@KelsonV I remember when Facebook called the red notification numbers "the jewels" and treated them as sacred and not to be messed with. Now that their engagement is crashing, they've started to put everything there: random posts from people they think (incorrectly) are my friends, nagging to wish people happy bday, every new post from every group. And of course you can't view messages without installing their stupid app. They're circling the drain it seems

@dantheclamman Yeah, didn't it used to be just messages, likes & comments? And everything else was just in the feed?