I'm only partly through diagnosing this widely, but it seems like people who arent getting value out of the following feed used the follow feature for a reason other than that they wanted to follow what that person/pub publishes. Some people (not you) said it was because they had been doing a follow/follow-back scam. Others, like you, seem to be following high volume & low signal publications. This has a simple solution that you are in control of: unfollow these pubs. If they are "forcing" you to follow as a requirement to publish with them then that's it's own scam. Don't participate. It's not going to work out well for them or for you.