On prominent accounts I follow, the top replies are universally all paid accounts posting clickbait, totally unrelated (or possibly AI generated?) to the poster. Here's a great example. I follow Jake Sherman, founder of Punchbowl News, to stay up to date on happenings in Congress. This is a reply:

https://twitter.com/3MTS_/status/1710360772612706416

All of that account's replies are spam like that. They're not even the worst offender, there are a handful of other accounts that just post emojis, complete nonsense, to every single popular account.

Musk had already destroyed the value of looking at a tweet's replies, which I consider the "accuracy" of the platform. But that was never the main draw anyway.

So far, my feed remains pretty good - the "recall". I've opted in to follow certain people or topics and truly, there's no better place to get the latest news. But if they destroy the value of the feed, there really will be no reason for anyone to stay.

I’m stunned no-one was able to talk him out of that one. “Pay-for-attention” is an _awful_ mechanic; even dating/hookup apps, who to some extent depend on it, generally have to ration it; you can’t just pay to be at the top of the grid/stack of cards all the time.