I like subject vs identity because I enjoy discussing issues and I enjoy seeing familiar people in the discussions, but I don’t like being followed and following is hard for me. I might love your thoughts on Star Wars but you also post a lot of cat pictures which I’m neutral about and sports which I don’t like.

So if I follow you and see those three subjects, two posts I have to cognitively tune out. If I follow a Star Wars board, I get your thoughts and potentially two other people’s thoughts in those same three posts.

I like that. On Bluesky (or TwX/Mastodon) I have to find people who mostly post about things I want to see. It’s hard and it’s not conducive to massive follow/follower counts which is normally the measure of success.

I also find myself feeling constrained to only post things my followers are interested in, because as an individual I’m just not that fascinating. So I post less and less as my follower count goes up.

Because of all that, subject vs identity is the most natural way to divide up social media to me. I’d be happy to brainstorm other ways, though.