It's a problem because people use vanity metrics like follower counts as a proxy for the popularity of a company and its product. That incentivizes businesses t

It's a problem because people use vanity metrics like follower counts as a proxy for the popularity of a company and its product. That incentivizes businesses to inflate their follow counts. In the real world, 10,000 useless bot or "follow back" followers should be less valuable than a thousand interested followers who are likely to buy something and promote your business. In social media world its easier for startups to get the thousand "good" followers if they also have 10,000 worthless followers because the good followers will dismiss a business if its only followers are the co-founders and their moms.