because primal implements counting via their caching server, and damus does it by fetching contact lists from relays. damus' method doesn't work well for counting large numbers of followers, and primal's method may be delayed. counting things on a decentralized network is hard.

You probably have different relays set up on primal than on Damus.

Each client will show you a different count.

But even so,, me and my mate use the same client and the same relays, yet we see different numbers when we check each others profiles.

TLDR: The numbers you see will always be an approximation.

Anyway you got another.

It's relatively easy to see how many people you are following, as they are all contained in one follower list note, so your client just has to count how many npubs are listed in the most recent version of that note.

Counting how many people are following you is a completely different matter, since the client has to look for any and all follower lists that contain your npub, wherever those lists might be saved across all the relays. Yeah... Ain't going to happen. At least not in any kind of exhaustive way. Therefore, follower counts will always be approximations.

nostr is very bad at follower counts because there is no central authority to track all of it. they're a bad metric to be honest. just keep engaging.