Dopamine addiction. Same with likes.

It is important to know how many entities want to read you

I mean... given how many people make a living off being an "influencer" it does seem like follower count is a pretty important metric for many people. But I agree. It should not matter. Engagement numbers with the content that is created should be enough for "influencers" to negotiate their rates.

Why have likes, zaps, reposts, etc? They are social signals to filter and/or measure the potential relevance of content and people. If there’s something that works better then sure it’d be great, but knowing that 10k people follow someone, while another has 40 followers is, in fact, useful. Same...

I thought p we needed the follower count because this is how you know that one account is "better" than the other, but now that I'm thinking about it this is not necessarily true