You are incorrect. Unavoidably, wholly and fundamentally incorrect. This all presumes that the "goal" of aggregators is discovery and submission of desirable subject matter. Remember - the content already exists out there somewhere. A google search would likely find it. Where Digg, Hubski, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, Upriser and anything else fit in is in actively pushing interesting content at the intended user, rather than forcing them to search it out themselves. You also do me a grave disservice by implying that anywhere in the above I said the first thing about "if we just follow hashtags." I said nothing of the sort, have never suggested this to be a desirable modality, and am offended that you would strawman me up like that to try and make a point. What I said was that the method of organization used by Hubski doesn't scale. I further pointed out that Hubski has favored following users rather than tags, often to the great detriment of functionality, and that if this trend continues, Hubski will collapse under its own weight. I used this argument as a justification for improving the searchability and tag extensibility of Hubski, not as a justification to stop following users. An example: To say "conversations certainly develop around topics" is a gross understatement. I'm not the slightest bit interested in the Detroit Redwings. Therefore, it does not interest me to have a discussion about the Detroit Redwings. I do not follow #redwings, #detroit or #hockey and as a result, I see no discussions about them. However, suppose comments in #redwings erupted about professional sports, the price of entertainment, and the economics of taking a family to a sporting event. Under the current system I would see it in my feed if I were following anybody in the conversation who chose to share it - presuming I don't have any tags set to ignore. Under the proposed system it would start creeping into my feed as it grew "heavier", depending on my settings. If it involved thenewgreen and @refugee@ I'd see it sooner, presumably, because I'm following them - or maybe the system would make me see it sooner simply because it knows how many times I've interacted with one or the other. Nowhere in there is there anything about "organizing the library" or "ignoring users." That's all about a scalable method for content discovery. Your reasons for coming here do not have to be my reasons for coming here. A good system accommodates our needs equally. It does NOT work pretty well for what it is - an influx of new users renders the site useless for a few days. A good system would not only accommodate the new users, it would integrate them seamlessly without allowing them to kludge the place up for everyone else or forcing them to spend a day wrapping their heads around the place. And thus we get to the real problem - I say "make it better" and everyone hears "make it different." I didn't say that. I wouldn't say that. I've never said that. I understand that thinking I said that makes it easier to ignore what I have to say, but it doesn't give your arguments any more grounding in reality.