I'll refer you to a Mastodon post which I've pinned on my profile:

https://mastodon.social/web/@baslow/108147342916246779

Microblogging is a form of vanity publishing, broadly comparable to birds sitting on the branches of trees calling to each other. To the extent that posting is the only thing microblogging allows you to do it is a terrible platform on which to try to build real, meaning-producing community.

The Sān people eat communally, copulate, hunt and gather together, deliberate about community matters, engage in ritual celebrations, heal each other, cooperate in child-rearing. etc. It is within the context of a community textured that richly that the practices related in the article must be interpreted. Meaning arises from context. It is very unclear if similar practices, occurring in contexts so much less rich that they barely deserve the name "community" can have the same meanings as they do among the Sān.

I don't microblog seeking to accumulate followers. I microblog to publish distillations of observations I have made, to try out ways of expressing ideas, to share ruminations about current events, and to try to find people with whom I might have more extensively fruitful and enjoyable conversations. I don't think any of those reasons are best described in the language of the "currency of power".

@baslow This is a strong tension point between microblogging and the commons. We may or may not hide followers counts by default (for example Alda had forked the Mastodon source code on witches.town to make the followers counts permanently display "⛧666⛧"), but in both cases, we want to bridge farmed users to a richer internet.