That, and any other number of reasons. I see no benefit of pumping follower counts. If it is a useless metric, why feed it?
What is a good reason for not having private follows, in addition to public ones?
Discussion
I don’t know. I don’t mind having them public (the ones that challenge my views or others). Having the option is good I guess. Private would make it harder to catch the scammers with multiple npubs though
Another reason I see is for web of trust. Just because I follow someone for content doesn't mean I trust them. A seperate and public list of people I trust would be more useful for that, people I know IRL, or have had extended interactions online could be added to that.
Private follow lists already exist, the function just isn't exposed well in clients yet.
There’s an easier way than private follows for that. On Nostur, you can create custom lists. I could have a list for hammers for examples where I have a bunch of npubs that talk about hammers. They don’t come into my web of trust like my follows
Lists should be implemented more widely imo
Cool, I hope it comes to more clients. And lists already have public and private options in the nip, so why not expose that functionality too. I don't see why people shouldn't have the choice.
Some examples where I think private follows would be useful:
My family & IRL friends and contacts. I could keep them in private lists. That way if someone wants to attack me for something I've said online they don't have immediate access to my friends and loved ones to harass.
Working on secret projects. If I was in a group working on something that I didn't want revealed yet, a private list could help keep the fact we are even working together out of the public eye.
Whistleblowers. I don't even think this needs explanation.
Please note I'm not saying it should be mandatory, or even default. Just an option. I think the positives would far outweigh any negatives.