The answer/comeback is "popular with whom?"

Most of my crowd seem to have left them behind because they went from a tool where I could see what my people were up to, and maybe the odd update about a band or a business I was interested in, to "Here are 50 things you have no interest in and by the way I deprioritised what your actual friends post".

This happened so much that most of the actual friends wandered off, making those posts even rarer. There seems to be a de-networking effect.

Should government be legislating that social networks work the way I want? Very good question, probably not. Am I still happy with this change? Broadly yes.