Not sure if this is server limitation or a client-side limitation? Makes it enormously difficult to curate/draw from other folks’ follows lists.
I’ve heard several explanations for this, ranging from efficiency concerns to privacy controls. I can understand the efficiency issues. But follows lists are the animating data that drive a social network: sharing that data (with adequate privacy controls) seems like a first-class feature.
Anyway: community discovery is definitely the toughest edge of the ecosystem right now. If I was a young, creative open source developer I’d be super excited to work on this ecosystem.