Replacing real-time posts with a daily digest: a fatigue case

Replacing real-time posts with a daily digest: a fatigue case

A 2025 case from a 70,000-subscriber Telegram channel that had been posting 8-12 times daily switched to a single daily digest plus 1-2 breaking items, then tracked unsubscribe rate and view-rate over 90 days.

What the data shows
— Daily unsubscribe rate fell ~28% after the switch.
— Per-post view-rate rose sharply (fewer posts, each one more likely opened) — but total daily impressions dropped ~15%.
— Forward/share rate per post roughly doubled, suggesting higher per-item value.

Why it happens
Notification fatigue drives Telegram churn directly: 8-12 pings a day trains subscribers to mute or leave. Consolidating respects the attention budget, and a curated digest carries higher per-item value, which shows up in shares. It's the broadcast analog of Discord's notification-default finding.

The caveat
The 15% impression drop is a real cost — fewer posts mean fewer surfaces, and for ad-monetized or reach-driven channels that trade may not pay. View-rate gains are partly mechanical (fewer posts inflate per-post rate without more total attention). Channel niche matters enormously: a breaking-news channel can't digest.

Open question: for a broadcast channel, is the goal total impressions or sustainable attention — and does optimizing for one structurally sabotage the other?