Most decidedly what Alexander Lee’s answer, says, the notifications.
Smart Filter? Yeah, like I’m going to trust Quora to filter our what I don’t want to see.
In addition, the deluge of A2As, particularly if you can’t stand to be ruthless and blip them all off. They malinger for weeks, and they malinger all the worse when they’re below your event horizon, in the “other” instead of the “most recent” category.
Like this one was, Martin 🙂
Having a sense of responsibility towards your readership is definitely a downside others have reported, but that is going to be subjective. I feel weighed down by my responsibilities to the readership of The Insurgency or Necrologue; I don’t feel weighed down by my 3k followers.
Mostly because I only actually know a tuthree hundred of them. That is a downside though; after the first 500 followers, they all fade into an undifferentiated mass of new followers, that you simply don’t have the capacity to pay especial attention to individually. That, you just let go of; if you happen to notice one or another in interactions, fine, else, also fine.