Comment by duskwuff

> why would you look at the "front page" if you only wanted to see things you subscribed to?

"Latest" ignores score and only sorts by submission time, which means you see a lot of junk if you follow any large subreddits.

The default home-page algorithm used to sort by a composite of score, recency, and a modifier for subreddit size, so that posts from smaller subreddits don't get drowned out. It worked pretty well, and users could manage what showed up by following/unfollowing subreddits.