It's probably obvious to point out that software in general (and social media in particular) are designed to minimize user agency as much as possible (not only that, they also have an insane amount of data to iterate on and optimize their design to that end). YouTube doesn't want you to think about what you want to do next, it wants you to stay on the website and watch the next video. Twitter doesn't want you to decide what you want to do with your time, it wants you to keep scrolling and retweet as much as possible.
I was wondering why cohost felt different and like an "older" website and it's not just the lack of a recommendation algorithm, the UX design plays into this as well
All the extra steps just to share a post originally mildly annoyed me, but you're totally right about it making us more mindful about sharing.
I'd still prefer if I didn't lose my spot in the feed after sharing not sure if the case for everyone??, but at least the feeds are finite, rather than being hopelessly lost in the pile.
I still struggle with deciding between leaving my thoughts as a comment or as a "quote rechost"(?), though.
(i began typing this as a comment, for example)