Followers are for cults 

 Because they have weak minds and need approval from others. 

 I think current top nostr clients are name oriented, much like twitter, Instagram..., rather than content oriented, like reddit, php forums.... 

So many are wrongly focused on being followed for an useless feel of importance I guess. 

Nobody seeked to be followed in php forums or reddit. I always felt like twitter was more of an stage rather than a public square.