I have rejoined postcrossing after 5 year timeout and have noticed interesting thing. It seems to me that currently postcards are added to favorites more rarely. I really enjoy going through recent postcard list, and have noticed only few of them are added to favorites.
What could be the reason?
Do you add only your own received postcards to favorites?
I don’t have statistics, but I have a similar feeling. I think it’s because of the sheer number of cards. There are so many more now and it’s less likely for the individual card to be seen by someone who’ll like it.
I never add cards I received to my favorites.
I haven’t experienced that at all - is it possible there is a daily limit? There is one for “likes”.
I think there is a total limit for postcard favorites, but not a daily one.
I (almost) only add cards that I have received to my favorites. My time is limited, so I concentrate on sending and receiving cards. 
I love every single view photo tourist card I get! 
I deliberately only keep 50-60 cards on my favourites list - the majority of which are cards received by other people. I do this because I want people who view my profile to be able to easily see the kinds of cards I like without overwhelming them with too much choice.
When I view a profile with a long favourites list, I usually only look at the first few pages to get a feel for their aesthetic. Any more pages than that it starts to become a blur.
I don’t take much notice of this. I favourite things that I like in the spur of the moment, whether I see them around or I receive them, but I don’t really take much notice of how and when it happens for mine.
I use to add postcards I received to my favourites wall all the time but now I rarely do this. I now mostly add postcards from the gallery that others have received to my favourites in hope people might send me them when they look at my wall if they have them in their collection. Often people will do this in RRs.
i don’t have any favourites on my own wall, but almost every night i get the message from postcrossing, that some of my cards have become favourites.
haven’t noticed any change there. sometimes it is only one card, sometimes it is 5 or more, it has always been like this…
This is very interesting. I have a lots of favorites (and adding more! 
) - partly because I play lots of tags (where people send favorites to each other) and partly because I wish to have a good amount of favorites from every country, at least the most common ones. But from every country I should have at least one.
When I get a profile, I often check their favorites, but basically only those from my country. (If they don’t have any, I feel a bit let down - that’s why I think it’s important to have favorites from every country. 
) I have noticed that about 2 pages of favorites from the same country is a good quantity - there is variety yet it is still not overwhelming. If I come across a person who has many pages of favorites from Finland (which is very rare), I will do like you and form a view based on the first pages. Especially if it seems their favorites are really similar to each other and completely something else than I have in my stash, I will not look further.
I don’t know how things used to be. I have only been here over a year. I don’t add my received cards to my favorites because my favorites work as a wish list. I sometimes see cards with a huge amount favorites (these were often sent 5-10 years ago) and I wonder is it just because there were less cards or were they somehow promoted. I guess it is like @Axolotl_ said, there are just lots of cards now. I very often come across amazing cards with zero favorites. They are just lost in the flood.
Maybe I’m too nice, but every card received I mark as a favorite.
I noticed that exact thing too! 10 years ago a postcard can easily got 50+ hearts, and now 4-5 is a lot.
I think, it’s connected to several things:
My most favorited postcard with 15 likes was sent almost 9 years ago, and I don’t think it’s that pretty or deserves it.
I always keep adding postcards to my favourites, and it saddens me that the cards I favorited years ago I will not receive, because they are not printed/existing anymore. That is why when I choose a card for someone, I start with last pages of favourites, maybe I have old card laying somewhere
It was my initial idea too. But then I checked the statistics and compared 2014 -Jan with 2021-Jan, and the funny thing that in 2014 there were 570 000 postcard sent and in 2021 only 430 000, so in fact number of postcard per month has dicreased.
And I started to think possibly people have became more picky 
So currently it is not enough to sent funny or cute postcard to be added to someone’s favorite. It should be really something unusual
I think if you show the links to some of your pretty sent postcards when it’s appropriate in some of discussions here on forum, they will get more likes, because of more exposure.
While that is true, these 430k cards are added to all the millions of cards that have been there previously. I don’t know how you find your favorites - I don’t only add recent cards. Meaning, I usually don’t use the galleries to find them. Instead, I see favorites on other people’s walls or in their sent and received cards. So the “card stock” is still diluted with every passing year. Did I explain my thought okay-ish? I don’t know if other people can get behind my thought here.
That’s a very considerate thought.
It’s more logical, especially, when person has a lot of favorited cards. Like @CorvusCorax mentioned, it’s easier to check two pages to get the idea, what person likes. So it’s nicer to check pages N and N-1, then pages 1 and 2 in that case
I felt that too! Like 2-3 years ago, a postcard from Bonaire had between 5-25 likes. Now, between 0-5.
I favourite cards if I feel like doing so. And usually every night I get a notification that some of my sent cards were favourited.
I’ve always felt the more likes and favourites, the less genuine they are. When I see profiles with 1000s of favourites, I wonder how many of them they have seen recently. I also don’t understand the concept of liking every card you receive. Getting a like should feel special, but if every card is liked it means nothing.
I too curate my favourites strictly. My aim is to have one page, so I frequently delete some to keep it to 60, although right now I’m inactive so I’ll leave it till I reopen my account.
I have 10000+ favourites and I go through them every month or so to remove received or the ones I now like less. I have diverse tastes and addicted to favouring a bit xD Every single one of them I’d love to have in my collections, and I remember and love most received postcards - I write about all of them slowly in my blog
EDIT: Also forgetting your favourites isn’t such a bad thing. It’s like telling your partner you like something and forgetting it. Then if you get it as a gift, it’d be wonderful surprise
I have a LOT of favourites. They are my wishlist and I think it would be easy for everyone to have a look at one page of my favourites from the country they are sending from to get an idea of what I like!
When I draw addresses and have time, I look at one page of their “received”, one page of their “sent” cards and at their favourites of Austria, or, if none from Austria are favourited, just at their “favourites” to get an idea.
I am quite obsessed with my popular cards 
but not as many are favourited, as I would like, but what can I do?
If I really love a card I receive, it gets a “<3” in the “comment”, so the Postcrosser knows I really love it, but it doesn’t land on my wishlist.
If someone sends me a card from my “favourites” I gladly send a card of Wien/Vienna back, if they let me know the ID of that favourite (so I can take it out). I offer that when registering, unless the address is on the card anyway. (Details in my profile).
Right now I have a few replies on hold, because Austria does not send to many countries (at least that was the case until last week!) right now, but no one is forgotten.
Sometimes people favourite so many cards I have received and none of mine. 
I think the most popular card I have ever received, has 78 likes so far, followed by one with 53 likes and one with 30 likes. Absolutely fabulous cards! 
My most popular card has 44 likes.