Before November 2022 Mastodon users used to joke that you’d “gone viral” if you got more than 5 boost or likes on a post. In an average week, perhaps one or two people might follow my account. Often nobody did. My post was now getting hundreds of interactions. Thousands.
So while the ability to boost the post an indefinite amount was technically there, in practice it wasn’t used very much, and even a boosted post would still stay within a relatively small circle of users.
I once read an essay—that I now can’t find—touching upon similar topics, where the author made the comparison to real-life public spaces. They were saying that yes, in principle everything you do in a public space can be witnessed by anyone, but people still have reasonable expectations about what will happen in practice. If you go out on a walk in the forest behind your house wearing a silly hat, you have the reasonable expectation that either nobody will see it or the only people who see it won’t broadcast it to the whole world. (Admittedly this expectation might have slightly faded with ubiquitous phone cameras.) Or alternatively, while it’s technically possible to run into your ex in any public space, you still have the reasonable expectation that you probably won’t run into them in your neighboring restaurant. Or that if you go to that restaurant, none of the other patrons will call your ex to let them know that you’re there.
People have these kinds of expectations of what their risk level in various public spaces is—separate from what’s technically possible—mediated in part due to various social norms, and get upset if those expectations are violated.
I feel like the linked blog post answers that:
So while the ability to boost the post an indefinite amount was technically there, in practice it wasn’t used very much, and even a boosted post would still stay within a relatively small circle of users.
I once read an essay—that I now can’t find—touching upon similar topics, where the author made the comparison to real-life public spaces. They were saying that yes, in principle everything you do in a public space can be witnessed by anyone, but people still have reasonable expectations about what will happen in practice. If you go out on a walk in the forest behind your house wearing a silly hat, you have the reasonable expectation that either nobody will see it or the only people who see it won’t broadcast it to the whole world. (Admittedly this expectation might have slightly faded with ubiquitous phone cameras.) Or alternatively, while it’s technically possible to run into your ex in any public space, you still have the reasonable expectation that you probably won’t run into them in your neighboring restaurant. Or that if you go to that restaurant, none of the other patrons will call your ex to let them know that you’re there.
People have these kinds of expectations of what their risk level in various public spaces is—separate from what’s technically possible—mediated in part due to various social norms, and get upset if those expectations are violated.