> the purpose is not to be publicly embarrassed by Xitter's performance I think you have a valid theory, but a point against this is if X was really embarrasse

> the purpose is not to be publicly embarrassed by Xitter's performance I think you have a valid theory, but a point against this is if X was really embarrassed about their performance and this was their motivation, it would not be very hard for them to fake activity numbers for the sake of maintaining public appearances. Perhaps X just thinks this would be an improvement for social media? A big part of the motivation for bots, for example, is inflating the counts on their posts/comments/profiles for the sake of appearing popular. Reducing those stats in importance could flip the cost-benefit analysis for a lot of bot activity and make a platform much better. That incentive to pump up the visible numbers drives a lot of nefarious social media activity. PS: Comments that hint at mind-reading are pretty off-putting to me. I think you have a valid theory, but de facto stating that you know the exact purpose for X doing something is incorrect unless you are Professor Xavier, Counselor Deanna Troi, or some other fictional character with mind-reading powers.