I've been following the thread and talking with creators and I'm not sure I back changing the algorithm right now, even though it'd probably benefit me personally.
Tapas is an ecosystem, and when you're a creator it's easy to become so focused on your direct peers, you don't notice that other creators affect you. All of us small (below 250 bookmarks) creators want to grow, it's true, and many of us are probably thinking "Yes! A change to the algorithm so I can get noticed and not be hidden by all those big series!" and maybe we're missing a pretty important thing: We need those big series. The big series are what bring people to the site and cause them to make accounts and to be on Tapas' front page in the first place. As frustrating as this sounds for a small creator, I think the algorithm does need to favour those big comics. They're the headliners at the music festival, and we're the side acts- would you rather be a headliner? Well, yeah! ...But being a side act at a music festival with loads of people there to see ACDC is better than being headliner at a music festival nobody's attending because they've never heard of you, right?
Example: I need The Witch's Throne to exist. If The Witch's Throne wasn't there, there'd be nothing to show me that there's an audience for a female-lead shounen manga on the site or to bring an audience for that content to the site. Am I jealous of that comic? Do I sometimes look wistfully at the premium titles in action like "I could do that! I should be up there!"? Well, yes, I'm only human and I get jealous sometimes. Like, sometimes I stare longingly at cakes and I imagine eating them, but I'm gluten intolerant so the short term joy of delicious cake in my mouth would inevitably later turn out to have been really bad for me. Things that feel good emotionally aren't always sensible long-term decisions. Throwing Errant up there instead of The Witch's Throne? Well, that's great for me in the short term! I'm sure I'd get a boost of subs! ...But in the long term? I'm not so sure, and if that comic left the site altogether because it was no longer profitable... well, that'd be probably pretty bad for me because fewer people would be coming in who read action genre comics.
Though they seem like giants to small creators, these "big creators" aren't that well-off. I imagine the earnings are pretty comparable to my day job. But until I get my comic popular enough to make money, I still have my day job and I'm very fortunate that I can work remotely and should keep it for the forseeable future even in this uncertain time. It'd honestly be selfish of me to say "Tapas, I know these people make their income off this, but I want to threaten their livelihood by killing their sub/view numbers so MY comic can get featured and get over the 250 bookmarks line and make a little bit of pocket money that isn't enough for me to live off but will make me feel good about myself". Is my ego really more important than somebody else making rent? No matter how much I may think my comic is awesome and wish it'd grow faster, it's not like I work harder than these popular or premium titles. They work hard, they deserve to feel financially secure.
My proposed alternative would be to keep the algorithm the same, keeping comics with the most readers at the top of popular, but that the "you might enjoy" on popular comics maybe showcases similar, but less popular, more mid-tier creators, and keeping premium series or ones already in the top 5-10 in popularity out of "staff picks" (but not necessarily out of the themed collections). This means that the big comics are still there, headlining the site and bringing in the crowds...AND those crowds are then seeing similar comics by growing creators that they might like based on the big thing they came to see. If a big bunch of people are coming to read The Witch's Throne, a shounen sort of feeling comic with a bold art style and a female lead... well, those are the exact people I want to see a recommendation to read Errant. I don't want them seeing my comic instead, I want them seeing my comic as well.