>> best predictor of quality is "who likes your stuff"

this is very true

_who_ liked your cast is the top heuristic we use to clean up our Trending Feed API and it works most of the time 🪐

docs.neynar.com/reference/feed-trending

If you think in terms of Google PageRank, replies and likes, not follows, are the equivalent of links.

Follows = stated preference
Replies and Likes = revealed preference

Yeah follows are way less meaningful than engagement imo

Reminds me of all of the IG accounts that obviously have fake followers based on their engagement numbers (tens of thousands of followers, a couple hundred likes)