It's not the popular algorithm that we look for, it's the ingredients and styles, which later form a menu, then the platform offers those menus.

Example of the ingredients:

most reaction, most divers reaction, most total sats zapped, most number of zaps, any number of tags, any number of mentions, specific subjects, most quoted, most boosted, and the list goes on...

(Could be the least in every case)

I as L put some of those together with a personal priority and preferance.

Then the client can offer a random or a popular algo based on people's choice.

It can also offer the menu right away and say help yourself, pick what you like.