Well, we all would like more engagement on the Fediverse, but most of us do not want it in exchange for engagement algorithm hell. There leads the path to even more politics than is already posted but now with an extra serving of vitriol, “hey let’s look at this video of a stranger being an asshole, get enraged, and insult them,” and controversial takes on someone’s “am I the asshole?” post drowning out actual cool stuff that appeals to most, but that also doesn’t make them type out 7 paragraphs online. And what cool stuff does make it up to some kind of Popular/Trending is frequently extremely short-form content, which a lot of people believe is lowering their attention span and frequently (though not always) just lower-quality than long-form content.

At least, that is what you get with an algorithm that tries to maximize engagement above all else. We’d have to balance engagement encouragement with quality, and try to avoid outrage porn getting pushed up so high at the expense of other things just because it tends to generate the most engagement.

I think a lot of us also like that we can read the unread posts and click off, instead of forever being encouraged to scroll more, so adding an addiction component on purpose would probably be unpopular.