The impression that I've learned in my short tenure here is that the philosophy of Hubski is to follow content based on users, not groups or topics. Users carry their own personality and interests, which may or may not be the same as yours. If they are, it serves as a foundation for discussion and debate, which are highly valued here.
I think that's the idea of unshared, but correct me if I'm wrong mk. I suppose if you have interesting enough content, people will share it with their subscribers. Over time, people will learn that you provide quality content and subscribe directly to you.
It seems to me now that you would need to have followers to gain followers.
Not really. I suggest that you need to first be a follower. Be an engaged and interested follower. Also put some interesting bio in your bio. When you follow someone - providing that they are being notified of your followization, they might want to see who you are, and follow you. If you respond to someone's post intelligently, they might want to see who you are and follow you. If your goal is to grow in wisdom and learn to love better, you will soon have followers. If your goal is to distract yourself from life, stroke yourself into believing you are liked, you will still probably get followers. It just takes time and the ability to show up open-hearted and open-minded.
Good advice all around. I was never really against the removal of tag-based subscriptions; I'm much too new to have a strong opinion one way or another. This change definitely surprised me but I understand the motives and more importantly, the broader Hubski mindset much more now. Thanks.
Discovering "new users" is a major focus moving forward for the site. That said, if you know that you are interested in science, the tags still exist and you can go to the list of science posts and find users to follow that post the type of science articles etc that interest you.