Limited Number of Subscriptions

Subscription systems are sometimes designed to be used for broadcast to facilitate one to many communication, for example, podcast feeds. Other subscription systems are intended for use in forming and strengthening interpersonal connections (ex: friend connections, dating apps, etc).

Platforms aiming for this second category could consider limiting the volume of connections a user can build up. A dating app could limit you to having only five matches at a time. A social media app could limit you to having only 10,000 friends. In both instances, the platform would use the design of the platform's limitations to express expectations of use, while curtailing the platform's use for other purposes. On such a dating site, aspiring influencers couldn't use the approach to farm followers. On such a social media site, influencers couldn't exist, since the relatively low cap on connections would prevent unbounded growth in the attention they could garner.

While these kind of limitations aren't for every platform, they're an important reminder that the patterns of behaviors that arise on digital platforms are constructs of their design, rather than the organic features of the people that congregate to them.