Yes, I much prefer following topics over people. Every time I glance at microblogging, there is just so much noise. At least lemmy-style forums have upvotes to surface quality content rather than the jumbled mess that microblogs are. No matter how much I like someone (even IRL friends/family), I won't be interested in their every passing thought, it's just exhausting.

Me neither, but I guess once you start following enough people, or the platform has a large enough amount of people posting there, it becomes "interesting" by quantity, if not quality.

I think I tried twitter for a week back in 2018, didn't "get it", deleted the account. Tried Mastodon last year, enjoyed the much larger character limit, but didn't feel like staying.

"The number of characters is limited based on old SMS standard! Lulz!"

Yeah, good way to have meaningful conversations where you can bring convincing arguments! /S

It's good for when you want to keep up with what people or organizations you're interested in are up to. Artists, authors, game developers, etc.

It sucks for any kind of in-depth content or conversation, including politics.