love where your head is and we do have a plan for visualizing popularity. that's down the line and a little different than what you're describing but it's important to first note...

we believe in ending "following" people and instead just adding them to your contacts (like our old school physical address books!). then it won't matter how many people have you in their contacts, your reach is instead how many blocks or neighborhoods you've been added to.

so a person added to a lot of neighborhoods could be considered popular, rather than someone who is simply in a lot of people's contacts. a popular neighbor if you will...

I also think instead of finding profiles, on nextblock you'll find a few accounts of people you already know, hang out in their in neighborhoods and decide for yourself whether you even want to curate your own neighborhood.

also important to note...

we will have an opt in ad experience that lets you set the price for you attention/you get paid on Bitcoin to watch ads

if you hang out in someone else's neighborhood and an ad fires off, they will get a cut of your payout. a fee for the experience they've curated for you in their neighborhood.

we envision popular neighborhoods to QC the accounts they choose. they'll be financially incentivized to maintain the experience that people are coming for.

with this design and incentivized structure we think it will be less laborious to have an awesome feed of content from accounts you actually want to see.