I loved this article Ric Burnett. I personally believe that you should only follow people whose writing you find engaging, that you want to read more from. I've read plenty of articles on Medium which discuss the benefits of following the maximum amount of people per day because statistically speaking some of those are likely to follow you back.

I don't believe in the concept of following people just to be followed back. That might work for some writers, but not for me. I prefer the list of people I follow to be those people who I actually want to read and engage with. Great article, keep up the great work.