JUST IN: bought followers vs earned — why the cheap shortcut now costs reach

JUST IN: bought followers vs earned — why the cheap shortcut now costs reach
Confirmed: the ranker weighs your engagement rate relative to follower count; it's a quality ratio, not a raw number.
Rumored: as of this period, accounts with inflated dead-follower counts get suppressed because their posts engage a tiny fraction of 'followers,' which reads as low quality.
The tradeoff:
— Bought/dead followers: vanity number up, engagement ratio down, reach throttled
— Slow earned growth: smaller number, healthy ratio, the algo trusts you
What it means for your reach: a clean 2k account out-reaches a padded 50k one. If you inherited fake followers, prune them — the ratio is the input, not the headline count.