Follower counts on a decentralized protocol don't make a whole lot of sense. 
Discussion
For each relay and each client on a "best effort" basis
Is a protocol feature though, not a bug 😅
How do you figure?
Because they're incredibly inaccurate without adding a centralized mechanism.
To calculate my followers, you have to look at every single npub across every single relay and look at their contact list to see if they follow me. That isn't very efficient.
My favorite analogy is counting your followers on nostr is like counting how many people have your cell phone number saved in their phone. You can’t.
Someone should vibecode a solution that gives a more definitive usercount.
A specific type of relay would be enough to later aggregate this data, isn't it?
definitely but you can probably do better than 1
I still think follows was the worst thing about nostr. I wish it'd been described as 'Connection' to make the connotation of the interaction being a deeper level of trust. Follows should have always been a simple list but this had the chance to really show a level of trust deeper than a "follow".
It's that 1 follower that counts
Primal says I’ve got 3,582 followers …
and I think some of them might not be bots!
Case in point:
Since this morning, I’m up to 3,598 Followers on Primal.
So if I’m understanding this right, if someone is on a different relay the count is actually off?
Looks like my profile 😂
Because you're using the wrong tool Derek. Try npub.world for follower counts that make sense.
No it does not . Weird .