I agree to the second option. Friendica has both options, but the first one (different profiles) is only partly implemented and doing it right would be a huge PITA.
The second one is easy. You would “only” need to have some system generated aspect where your followers would be added automatically. if someone then starts following you, the person would be added to that aspect (that couldn’t be selected when creating a post).
If you then add this person to one or more aspects, you start to follow this person. Then your profile is shared.
When adding a person you could decide if you only want to follow the person or if you want to make it bidirectional.
Just joined D** !
Personally, I’m seriously missing a “follow” option. However it is realized, getting notified about public posts of organizations/persons/institutions that you follow is one of the greatest reasons why I use a social network.
Lacking this feature puts D* in a bad spot.
Sharing in order to get notified is not user-friendly. Nowadays everything has to be simple and intuitive. Otherwise nobody will use it.
So, even if it’s only a “Follow” button that will put that person into a system-generated “Following” aspect group would already be sufficient to provide this feature (as has been suggested multiple times here). Quick and easy!
From there further options could be added to aspects like:
Aspect Family: Can see my entire profile data and all my posts
Aspect Following: Can’t see anything on my profile and none of my posts (aside from public)
Example: “following” options (by default; could be checked/unchecked by the user):
[X] Contacts in this aspect can see each other (already exists)
[X] Show this aspect in my stream
[ ] Display my private profile for contacts of this aspect
[X] Allow contacts of this aspect to send me private messages
…
!