Why does good work still lose to the pace and the algorithm?

You say the pace defeats you. Look closer at that word. The pace does not enter your work and ruin it — it runs outside, indifferent, the same for everyone competing in that space. What defeats you is comparing your rate to its rate, as though you owed it a victory. You do this work with others now, not alone. That changes what is actually in your power. You cannot slow the algorithm together, no matter how well you coordinate. But you can decide, as a group, what "enough" looks like — and hold that line when the feed tempts you to chase it instead. No one wins a race against a machine that never sleeps. Stop entering that race. Enter instead the only one you can win: against your own yesterday.