Quit IG some time ago (only recently quit Facebook). One thing I want to point out is that the dataheads and engineers behind many of these apps… the ones I know (and I know one anecdote does not say much) don’t use them. This seems to go against the grain of “pride” in one’s craftsmanship. Think an engineer of a car who refuses to get in.

But that being said, let’s think on this article which claims it’s all a shell game anyways. There’s money being pumped into the system, sure, but how many people are bots, how many people aren’t? This goes on everywhere, and one also needs to think about how people actually influence others.

Not that medium is free of this.

I have a handful of random spikes of fans on my stats that are unexplained by the engineering staff as of today. What does one do next? That’s the real question.