I don't understand the problem. Why can't you minimize the "People you follow" pane and just ignore it? Is it that shared items appear in the "All items" view?

I don't understand the problem. Why can't you minimize the "People you follow" pane and just ignore it? Is it that shared items appear in the "All items" view? An easy solution is to just drop all your subscriptions into a single folder, and then view it through the subscriptions pane. Same content as all items except nothing shared.